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Call centers have changed in their operations immensely over the last decade. Today they use technology to store and retrieve all sorts of data about every customer.
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How to offer exceptional security to sensitive data in Top 6 Ways
Introduction • In today’s world, data is the most precious resource we have. With the increase in the value of data, of course, comes the increasing threat of data breaches. • It is a worrying trend that data breaches have become all too common in the telemarketing and communications sector. • At its worst, a security breach could end up costing company millions, but even at its most feeble, companies have to deal with a wastage of time and potentially losing out on business due to scam attempts, fraudulent calls, data breach attempts, etc. • A 2017 survey reports that a medium-sized call center could be hit with over a thousand fraudulent calls a month, on an average. • That is a staggering number for an industry that deals with sensitive data on a daily basis.
Call centers have evolved in their operations massively over the last decade. They have shifted from traditional call-to-call procedures to more sophisticated, computer-aided schemes. • Today, they utilize technology to store and retrieve all sorts of data about each and every customer – including personal data. • They also conduct sales directly over the phone through online transactions, in which case they store sensitive information about clients’ bank accounts, transactional details, etc. • Considering how much confidential data call centers typically store, it is now more important than ever to assess our security measures and ensure that under no circumstances do we leave the safety of personal and private information to chance.
We need to ensure that any payments that customers make over the phone are absolutely safe, and that access to their personal data is under secure eyes. • The most common of all forms of fraud in the call center industry is identity fraud. Therefore, we must be vigilant in confirming identity before we allow any access to sensitive information. • Matt Lautz, the President and CIO of CorvisaCloud says, “Identity theft is something all contact centers need to be cognizant of, and it is absolutely essential to take the right steps to verify who they are talking to.” • The issue of identity theft is obviously a major concern, but it is by no means the only problem call centers have to deal with. • In this article, we talk about some of the ways to ensure better protection and security for financial and private data that call centers can employ to beef up their security systems and keep themselves immune to the threats of fraud.
Strengthen your Q&A protocols • As mentioned before, identity fraud is the leading way of data breaches that occur in call centers. • Not just that, the number of global call center fraud cases have spiked up by 45% in the last decade. • In a call center, an agent cannot physically see the customer to validate their identity. Therefore, they need to use stringent questions and answers to understand who they are talking to. • There are fraudsters out there trained in the art of manipulation to gain unauthorized access. • That is why, customers and agents need to settle security questions and answers right at the beginning of the association, and these questions need to be correctly answered for every subsequent call before any personal information is revealed. • It is important to ask open-ended questions, so that the fraudster cannot get lucky with a guess. It is also useful to ask questions that are not on any documents, but are a product of your previous conversations.
Control access according to clearance • This is a very important step to ensuring security. In a call center, as in every organization, there is a hierarchy of position, and a wider access of information as we move up the authority ladder. • Every piece of information that is private or sensitive in nature needs to be hidden from anybody without access authority for it. • For example, in a call center, the Managing Director would have access to any information stored and used by the company. • The managers under him would have all the data relevant to their specific departments.
The team leaders under them would have access to all the data pertaining to the customers that the team is assigned, and the employees at the agent level would have access to data about the customer they are calling or about to call. • This chain of command is important to ensure that data does not fall into the wrong hands. An ordered structure like this ensures two things. • First, it makes sure that everybody has access to data relevant to their work and their work only. Second, it ensures that an employee has absolute idea of whatever data he or she is handling. • If someone gained access to data they shouldn’t have, they would not know what to do with it, and would thus be vulnerable to a hack even though that person himself had no malicious intent.
Keep your agents well-trained and educated about the latest threats • The number one reason for fraud continues to be due to lack of awareness among agents to spot the signs. • All cases of manipulation involving identity thefts fall under this category. • In addition, failure to recognize toxic attempts at passwords, easy recovery systems, unsafe public domains and manipulative interactions are all caused because agents are not educated enough to know what the latest threats are, how to identify them and what to do to prevent them. • Agents need to be provided periodic training so that they can stay ahead of the game and protect the data pertinent to your customers, as well as keep the company safe from the threat of a breach.
Implement multiple layers of security • Given the sheer volume and value of the data a call center has, it is easy to understand why they are a major target for illegal attempts. • Many of the preventive methods around today are great at stopping the majority of attacks, but our successes are not judged on the attacks we stop. • Even if one person is able to get through, the losses are in the millions. • Therefore, implementing multiple layers of security is essential to protect your systems, especially in situations where customers are transferring money over the phone for purchases. • A sophisticated hacking technique can get through one layer, maybe even two, but it becomes nearly impossible to get through four or five highly secure layers of protection. • This way, even if one method of protection is compromised, it becomes increasingly difficult for a hacker to circumvent the entire system.
Utilize reliable password policies • The Trustwave Global Security Report of 2015 found that 28% of global data breaches were because of weak passwords which could be easily circumvented. • Especially in case of financial transactions, it is seen that a lot of customers who are unaware of the requirements for a strong password opt for something very common because it is convenient to use. • Agents need to first and foremost implement a strong password policy in internal affairs, all business terminals, servers, firewalls, routers and other network devices. • Second, they need to constantly remind customers to do the same on their end as well. They need to drive home the point about how an easy password leaves a customer’s bank account details vulnerable to interception and malicious use. • In addition, encryption policies need to be applied so that passwords can remain waterproof and allow full functioning only after strict validation checks.
Opt for biometrics to validate identity • Biometrics is a relatively new technology we have been using for secure systems, and it has changed the way we control access to sensitive data. • Voice biometrics is a technique of identifying a unique voice print for every individual, and then matching the caller’s voice print with the sample of the customer provided beforehand. • The method is still in its nascent stages, but claims to have a very high level of accuracy. For the companies, this would provide a foolproof way to check for identity of the callers. • For the customer as well, this is a much more convenient way to authenticate because it does not take up any extra time and does not require them to continually answer questions and go through a verification process every time they call in to make a transaction.
