Fortifying Your HRMS Data SecurityRavi Sathyanarayana, CTO - AscentHR

Employee data is vital information that every organisation must preserve securely at all costs from unauthorised access and breaches. Data security in HRMS encompasses various aspects like data encryption, access controls, regular audits, employee awareness and training, and so on. This article explores why data privacy and security are essential parts of HRMS software.

While companies may be familiar with these aspects, they may need to know how to use them to enhance efficiency.

Data Encryption

This process involves converting important information into a code to prevent unauthorised access or attack. When it comes to HRMS, this information may have to be safeguarded or encrypted in two situations- when it is stored within the system and when it is in transit, which means when it is being shared across networks. When data is at rest or still in the form of stored data, companies may have to ensure that an AES is enabled. AES is an Advanced Encryption Standard which secures data with a 256-bit key. Here, 256 shows the length of the keys. In non-specialist language, it is like a password people use to protect their smartphones. Data encryption may not necessarily have to be an inbuilt feature of HRMS software, but companies may consider collaborating with other trusted companies that specialise in HRMS data security.

When the data is being transferred through channels, a secure socket layer (SSL) or transport layer security (TLS) is required. The key role of these encryption protocols is to protect payroll data, employee personal information, and other sensitive employee reports while being shared among clients or between servers. SSL starts a unique authentication method called Handshake to ensure that the system sharing the data and the system on the receiving end recognise each other.

Access Controls

As the term explains, access control determines who can access the HRMS and what they can do about it. Implementing robust access control isn’t as easy as it sounds. It requires several critical practices:

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Implementing an RBAC allows user to access a specific feature based on their designations. For instance, an HR manager might have access to all employee records, while a regular employee can only view and update their information.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Simply put, this is very similar to how Instagram, Google, and WhatsApp have now implemented two-factor authentication, where the user may first receive a message on their verified mobile number, and the second OTP goes to the registered email ID to ensure the person is who they’re pretending to be. In the realm of HRMS, MFA asks users to provide two or more verification factors to access their HRM portal. This verification can be a password, a security token number, or even their biometrics verification, and the purpose of this is to ensure that whoever is trying to access a system is an authorised and trusted individual.

Regular Audits and Monitoring

Audits and monitoring at regular intervals ensure that the security system implemented is doing its job of protecting the HRMS. This may involve critical points like:

Log Monitoring: regular monitoring of logins/logouts may show suspicious activities like failed login attempts, unrecognised fingerprints, unusual access patterns and other potential security breach indicators.

Audit Trails: An audit trail allows companies to track changes made to any system configuration or data. The benefit of this is that it detects unauthorised activities and tracks back to the user who made those changes, so they don’t get away with whatever they’ve done.

Periodic Security Audits: Periodic security audits can be either internal or external. The main goal is to assess and identify potential threats and rectify these vulnerabilities immediately to avoid security breaches until the next audit.

SAST and DAST Scans

Critical SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) scans are two key approaches to discovering security vulnerabilities in software.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

SAST is capable of analysing the source code, bytecode or binary code of an application before deploying the program. The goal is to find vulnerabilities such as coding errors, insecure coding practices, or potential security flaws. This testing process is called Static Application Security Testing, as the analysis is done in a non-runtime environment, which means the code is examined in a static state. SAST enables early detection of vulnerabilities before the deployment of the code. Another feature of SAST is its comprehensive coverage. It analyses the entire codebase, which includes components that may not be executed during runtime. This helps in identifying vulnerabilities in unused or less obvious parts of the code. Besides finding security issues, SAST tools often help improve code quality, ensuring compliance with coding standards and regulations.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

While SAST does its work during a static state, DAST is into testing applications in its running state. DAST simulates attacks on live applications to detect vulnerabilities that may arise when applications start interacting with their environment.  It operates by interacting with the application through its user interfaces on APIs, simulating attack scenarios to identify issues like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), or other similar runtime vulnerabilities. DAST demonstrates how attackers would interact with a live application, making it easier to identify the weaknesses of the application, which makes it a reliable real-world testing system. 

Companies looking forward to securing their systems may have to consider combining and implementing SAST and DAST, as it is clearly the best comprehensive security strategy.

Five-Star Assessment Rating        

The Fortify on Demand 5-star rating system provides an idea of the probability and impact of vulnerabilities present within an application. A perfect rating within this system would be 5 stars, indicating that no vulnerabilities were uncovered.

★Fortify on Demand awards one star to applications that have undergone a security review that identifies critical (high likelihood and high impact) issues. Vulnerabilities that are trivial to exploit and have a high business or technical impact should never exist in business-critical software.

★★Fortify on Demand awards two stars to applications that have undergone a security review that identifies no critical (high likelihood and high impact) issues. Vulnerabilities that have a high impact, even if they are non-trivial to exploit, should never exist in business-critical software.

★★★Fortify on Demand awards three stars to applications that have undergone a security review that identifies no high (low likelihood and high impact) issues and meet the requirements needed to receive two stars. Vulnerabilities that have a low impact but are easy to exploit should be considered carefully, as they may pose a greater threat if an attacker exploits many of them as part of a concerted effort or leverages a low-impact vulnerability as a stepping stone to mount a high-impact attack.

★★★★Fortify on Demand awards four stars to applications that have undergone a security review that identifies no medium (high likelihood and low impact) issues and meets the requirements for three stars.

★★★★★Fortify on Demand awards five stars, the highest rating, to applications that have undergone a security review that identifies no issues.

Data Backup and Recovery

People usually back up all important data on their phones to a hard disk or buy cloud storage so they don’t lose them, even if they lose access to the device. The same thing happens in companies that handle large amounts of data. They may have to create a data backup or have a tool or method in place to retrieve the data in case of a system failure, breach, or other unprecedented disaster. 

Regular Backups: Companies can back up all their critical HRMS data regularly by setting a schedule if need be. This backup may have to be stored in a secure, off-site location to prevent physical damage to the primary data centre.

Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP): Just like how every nation has a rescue plan to implement during a natural calamity, companies may have to have a disaster recovery plan in place which outlines the measures that may have to be taken to recover lost data and resume their operations and ensure minimal downtime and data loss.

Testing Recovery Procedures: Testing recovery procedures is something that companies often overlook, as they might feel that they may not need it or that it might work when required. This overconfidence may sometimes lead to permanent loss of HR data. Therefore, companies may have to test their recovery procedures occasionally to ensure their reliability.

Employee Training and Awareness

Every time something goes wrong within an organisation, the employees may have to be informed about it.  Employee training and awareness initiatives are crucial in creating a security-conscious culture within the organisation. This involves:

Regular Training Sessions: Employees may have to be made aware of best practices in data security, like understanding phishing attempts, creating strong passwords, and protecting sensitive information.

Phishing Simulations: Simulated phishing attacks help employees better understand how they work so they know how to identify and respond to them.

Security Policies and Procedures: Employees have to be informed about the security policies and procedures followed by the organisation, which may eventually help them understand their role in protecting company data.

Reporting Mechanisms: It is imperative for companies to encourage their employees to report suspicious activities and security incidents without fear of reprisal to be able to fix the issues and move forward.

Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

Implementing a secure software development lifecycle ensures that security is integrated into every stage of HRMS development. Here is what an SDLC does:

Threat Modelling: Threat modelling is a part of SDLC that identifies potential threats and vulnerabilities in the HRMS at an early stage.

Code Reviews and Testing: SDLC regularly reviews codes, performs static and dynamic analysis, and implements penetration testing to identify and fix vulnerabilities before software deployment.

Patch Management: SDLC ensures that all the software and systems are updated with the newest security patches to protect against known vulnerabilities.

Data Anonymisation and Masking

This is an interesting part of data security. Data anonymisation and masking are techniques used to protect sensitive data by making it unidentifiable or obscured for attackers to recognise.

Anonymisation: This is the process of taking out personally identifiable information (PII) from data sets to forbid the identification of individuals. This method is beneficial for data used in analytics and testing.

Masking: As one may see in heist movies, masking obscures sensitive data elements by replacing them with fictional data that looks authentic but is not usable by unauthorised users.

These techniques help protect sensitive data while allowing it to be used for legitimate business purposes.

Data Minimization

An effective way to reduce data security risk is to minimise the amount of data that companies store within their systems.

Data Collection Policies: If a well-defined data collection policy is in place, companies will know what to collect and how much to store, ensuring that only necessary information is gathered.

Data Retention Policies: This requires regular reviewing of data to find out what is no longer needed and can be discarded, as well as the ones that must be retained.

Data Inventory: Having an inventory to store all required data may ensure it is properly stored and protected.

Endpoint Security

Endpoint security involves protecting the devices that access the HRMS. This is much like how people install an antivirus to protect their computers. Endpoint security protects against threats that originate from devices accessing the HRMS.

1. Antivirus and Anti-Malware
2. Software: Companies may have to install and regularly update their antivirus and antimalware software on all endpoints.
3. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): This detects security threats on endpoints, allowing companies to take proactive measures to fix the issue.
4. Network Security

The role of Network security measures is to safeguard the communication channels used by the HRMS.

• Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS): An IDPS may help detect network-based attacks, preventing attackers from accessing data.
• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): People commonly use VPNs to secure their data and search history. They can secure remote access to HRMS, ensuring the data transmitted over the internet is secure and encrypted.

Secure Deletion and Disposal

Companies are often found to be more concerned about the data that have been deleted, overthinking whether they could be accessed and misused through dumpster diving or any other practices. Secure deletion and disposal practices ensure that data is permanently erased from storage media when no longer needed.

Data Wiping: Companies may have to implement a secure data wiping technique to erase data permanently from everywhere, making it unrecoverable, no matter how hard somebody tries.

Physical Destruction: Physically destroying devices like pen drives and hard drives is another way to permanently delete data.

By implementing these measures, organisations can maintain the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of HRMS data, thereby safeguarding the interests of their employees and the organisation as a whole.