The 4 Keys to Secure Digital Archiving

When securely archiving documents and email messages in the cloud, you should consider specific security and safety standards. Here are four best practices for digital archiving.

The first key to digital archiving includes authentication, data traffic, access control and document encryption.

Authentication

Managers and top-level executives should only be allowed to access certain documents by providing a unique username or password. This gives users specific rights while providing an audit trail of who accessed a document, when they accessed it and the actions they took.

Data traffic

The HTTPS protocol should encrypt information flow between web components, providing an added security layer (TLS/SSL) over the HTTP protocol.

It also prevents hackers from intercepting sensitive company information and documents such as passwords, user information and financial data.

Access control

Document access requires multiple levels of control to protect information. Access should be possible for job roles, entire groups and individuals. Smart rules should also be set to restrict this access and what employees can do with these documents.

For example, an HR manager can access all employee documents — resumes and performance reviews — while only sharing them with people who can access these documents, such as the reporting manager.

In turn, employees can only access their own performance reviews and other financial and insurance information at an individual level.

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Data storage redundancy and protection against viruses give you peace of mind.

Redundancy

Whether you manage and store documents on-premise or in the cloud, you should have at least two layers of data storage redundancy to maintain business continuity if one system fails.

Need extra protection against natural disasters? Add a third.

Virus protection

Hackers are known to create viruses that embed themselves in documents. A common example includes crypto viruses, where malware is embedded in a document that asks the user for a decryption key in exchange for payment.

Any secure document archiving or document management software should have built-in mechanisms to protect the local user environment and the software.

Secure document archiving requires that data remain within the borders where customer information is legally protected and separate from the cloud provider's system files.

Data sovereignty

Many companies prefer to keep the data within their sovereign borders — unless they do business in those other countries. For example, UK businesses typically don't want their data outside of Europe.

That means document archiving systems must keep data and backups within those borders where customer information is legally protected.

Data separation

Data separation means customer data is kept separate from the system files of the cloud provider that's implementing the document archiving solution.

A DMS, such as DocuWare, can't see customer data at all, ensuring all customer information remains private.

Documents must have complete integrity every time they're accessed, meaning documents and email messages need to be unimpaired. Maintaining document integrity today can be challenging because altering documents and concealing who changed them is quite easy.

This is specifically important for email messages. As emails are a insecure, providing a secure digital archive for the email messages prevents them from tampering, modification and loss. Retaining email communication is critical to understanding the communication and context of some business processes.

But there are a few things you can do to maintain document integrity in your organisation, such as:

Electronic signatures

Electronic signatures — or digital signatures — are a common part of business and meet strict legal regulations. They also provide the highest level of assurance that a signature is legitimate and the document hasn't been tampered with.

Why? Because a verified Trust Service Provider has issued the digital certificate and authenticated the signer.

Logging changes

Secure document archiving and conducting complete and accurate audits requires accessing the entire document history.

Document archiving solutions should record every access, annotation and workflow state. The solution should also let you download and access data in any standard format, such as CSV.

Version management

An essential part of maintaining document integrity is identifying what has changed between document versions and ensuring users only edit the most current version. One way to ensure proper version management is to lock 'checked out' documents.

Retention management

The fifth and final element of secure document archiving is the legal process for dealing with the retention and destruction of information.

Retention policies

The law states that organisations must keep certain documents for a specific number of years.

Previously, businesses would store these documents in cabinets and shelves and shred them using a machine. Thanks to cloud-based document management solutions, you can now easily store documents digitally in the cloud.

These systems provide workflow tools to automate previously mundane tasks and digitise the paper office — all while following the rules and providing document protection or destruction at set times to protect your business from litigation.

Take the checklist seriously

Not all document archiving solutions are the same. To unlock these benefits, you need a system that ticks certain boxes.

Our blog has a shorter version of the four key elements of secure document archiving for easy reference. That checklist should be at the forefront of any document management benefits conversation.

Next: The ROI of digital archiving