Cyber security risks in accounting & bookkeeping and CPA firms

In today’s era, businesses across most sectors are vulnerable to various types of cyber attacks. And according to the 2019 Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, about 4800 websites are compromised every month by cyber attacks.

And of all these businesses, Accounting/ bookkeeping is one such business that is more vulnerable to security threats as customers deal with their valuable financial information and confidential data.

And now cyber criminals continue to search for malware to collect financial information of bank accounts and accounting customers. Therefore, preventing revenue losses makes it necessary for accounting companies to seek security threats in 2020.

If you are using Outdated Software/ Applications/ Tools:

There have been many cases where many technology/ IT companies have failed to protect their customers’ financial data. Accounting firms should keeping updated anti-virus software because they have clients’ financial data. These attacks are more likely to occur if the OS and applications in your system are not updated periodically.

As well as, accounting firms must select the right software and applications to store sensitive financial information and setup a secure network and anti-malware software to share financial record.

 Clients’ data leak by Employees:

These days many accounting firms are switching to cloud accounting so that employees can use any location from different devices. Accounting firms also allow employees to use their accounting software for business purposes. It is possible that the client’s data has been stolen by any employee, so the accounting firms should ensure that they sign the NDA with their employees.

If you are not evaluating Security Risk:

However, small and medium-sized accounting firms do not implement such strong security strategies as do large accounting businesses. And just because of this, cyber criminals target small and medium accounting firms for malware attacks.

No accounting firm can withstand or circumvent emerging security threats without assessing security risks. It is necessary to evaluate your security vulnerabilities, this is how the accounting firm will be able to formulate and improve its security strategy.

Data exchange:

Accounting firms should pay attention on secure line during financial data exchange. Nowadays accounting firm using secure connections and communicate internally through secure channels.

Even today a large percentage of accounting firms still communicate with their customers over email. Even they send their financial documents like bank statement, tax document by email. And taking advantage of these things, many cyber criminals carry out malware attacks like ransomware to steal sensitive financial data. Accounting firms should use email encryption mechanisms to securely share confidential financial information of themselves and clients.

Therefore most cloud hosting service providers provide end-to-end encryption, which ensures that the data is readable only to authorized users.

Remote Access:

There are many accounting firms use cloud-based accounting, allowing employees to access accounting software and client data from any location via the Internet. However, hacker can steal the client’s financial data due to remote access.

To avoid this, accounting firms should install a secure virtual private network (VPN) in employees’ computers to help protect financial data.

To prevent hacking during remote access the firm must use reliable software and in addition to this implement multi-factor authentication so that no unauthorized users can access the data stored in the cloud.