Data security is a major issue for all companies, whatever their size. Indeed, data security is often at the heart of the companies’ activity; and yet the risks are often underestimated, both by SMEs and by some larger enterprises.
This is especially true for data security in the fields of maintenance and CMMS: both are too often seen as not very strategic and are considered manageable “the old-fashioned way”. However, unlike most can think, the security of data related to the maintenance management is just as important as that of any other sector of the company. To remedy that, next-gen CMMS software are the most accurate solution.
Data security, a crucial issue for all companies
Issues related to the security of IT systems can have a significant impact on the growth and turnover of companies. According to the 2020 PwC Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey, cybercrimes remain one of the top-three most commonly experienced types of crime.
What are the security risks for companies?
Financial losses caused by IT security incidents are huge and increasing every year – these incidents can have different causes:
- fraudulent emails;
- identity theft;
- malicious acts caused by internal security issues;
- infection of workstations by viruses;
- loss of sensitive information;
- false manipulation.
To address these risks, more and more companies, especially SMEs, are turning to cloud technology, which offers great flexibility and reduces the costs involved in implementing good IT security. This solution is generally a good choice, but it must comply with certain measures such as encryption of stored data and systematic user authentication using complex passwords.
Loss of data, a neglected risk
People too often think, that data security is only related to external threats. Yet data loss due solely to factors within the company is a frequent phenomenon with significant consequences.
Data loss can have different causes. They are sometimes of hardware origin, due to a failure of the IT infrastructure, linked to a breakdown of servers or workstations, that can be caused by a lack of maintenance or by wear and tear. In some cases, these breakdowns lead to the loss of important and/or sensitive data, which is essential to the functioning of the company.
Sometimes accidental deletions cause data loss. However, these human errors can only happen in the absence of systems to prevent them.
Good access management
A proper data access management can significantly reduce the risk of data loss due to human error. It involves raising awareness among teams about data security, but also defining an internal security policy to define the rights and authorizations of each user. To be effective, this policy must be based on relevant and efficient tools, in particular in the field of maintenance.
Data security thanks to next-gen CMMS
The maintenance of industrial equipment relies on a large amount of data. Without them, you can’t implement a strategy or a follow-up. This is why data security matters for this part of the company at least as much as for any other part. This is all the more true since, in certain fields of activity, maintenance management is subject to specific standards.
How do next-gen CMMS manage maintenance data?
A CMMS tool records all the data related to the maintenance of equipment, but also to spare parts: maintenance plans, technical characteristics and machine activity, maintenance operations, etc. A next-gen CMMS like Mobility Work stores all this information in a secure cloud, that provides unbeatable guarantees.
Cloud and data encryption
Mobility Work, just as Netflix, Airbnb or Spotify, stores all customer data on the secure servers of the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Cloud. AWS is one of the most trusted vendors and has a large number of security certificates, from which all its customers benefit.
In addition, Mobility Work applies two levels of security to all data managed by the application. The first is a system for filtering user requests using Cloudflare, a website security service. Moreover, the Mobility Work software infrastructure is located on private servers, which prevents vulnerability scans from being applied to it, a method often used before malicious intrusions.
Finally, all data processed by the application is encrypted from end to end, from the user data when they log on (“encryption in transit”) to the information stored on the AWS server (“encryption at rest”). No interception by an external element is therefore possible.
Control the privacy of your data thanks to a next-gen CMMS
Thanks to the Mobility Work application, you can control the privacy of your data in a precise and optimized way, for each device or group of devices, for each dashboard and each report. There are 3 levels of confidentiality:
- my plant – 1 network;
- my industrial group – several factories;
- the community – public but anonymized information.
The first level of confidentiality is the equivalent of a completely private network: the number of people who have access to the information is restricted. The second level corresponds to a group of factories within the same industrial group. This option allows easy and secure information sharing, that conventional CMMS cannot provide. The third level, the Mobility Work maintenance community, allows an experience exchange, between users of the same machine for example, in order to optimize maintenance processes.
Meet the specific data standards
Finally, some companies are subject to specific data management standards. This is the case, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry, where the 21 CFR Part 11 standard applies to all productions for the North American market. This standard requires, among other things, strict and advanced management of user access and rights, a log of all connections and the definition of precise hierarchical schemes for the approval of certain data. To meet these criteria and expectations in maintenance management, adopting a next-gen CMMS is by far the best solution.
Today, data security is more important and more complex to guarantee than before the widespread of new technologies. It requires the adoption of tools that are adapted to current issues and to their users, particularly in the field of maintenance. This is why the Mobility Work next-gen CMMS is the best solution to ensure that your maintenance data is protected against all types of risks.
