Find the best solution to secure your documents, wherever they live

The average cost of a data breach in 2024 was $4.9 million. A 10% increase in expense from 2023 made that the highest ever recorded, and there’s no sign of that trend reversing. Businesses must proactively deal with the vulnerabilities and threats that lead to these breaches or leave themselves open to the consequences.

Document security solutions are one powerful way to protect your organization’s critical information. They can help prevent sensitive documents from being exposed to unauthorized parties, whether that exposure is accidental or malicious. These solutions also let you see who has viewed a file, when they accessed it, and where they viewed it, which enforces accountability. And they can do it all without making your day-to-day processes unnecessarily complicated.

Here’s what you need to know to find the best document security solutions for your business.

What are document security solutions?

Document security solutions are tools, software, or best practices that ensure only authorized parties access your invoices, reports, memos, and other documents. Your document security solution may be integrated with a document management system, or it may be part of measures that apply to your entire network, such as a security service edge.

Your document security solution should also include a set of protocols for employees to follow. After all, the information stored in documents can be transmitted in many forms. If an employee doesn’t know why security is important, they may not think twice about screenshotting a sensitive document to send it to a coworker “without the hassle” of using secure sharing mechanisms.

Did You Know?:Finding the right place to store your documents is an important part of keeping them secure. Check out our guide to document storage companies to learn more.

5 features to prioritize in document security solutions

Effective document security solutions don’t just apply a single layer of protection. They encompass a range of techniques and technologies to defend your information against accidental exposure and malicious access. Here are five features to prioritize as you look for the right fit:

1. Access control

If your document security solution only does one thing well, it should be access control. At its most basic level, access control dictates who can open what documents. But it isn’t as simple as saying, “This person can and this person can’t.” Here are a few of the factors your document security solution should be able to assess:

• Individual account
• The department the person belongs to
• Position in the organizational chart
• What type of device the person is using
• Where the person is accessing the document from as determined by network connection
• Whether access was granted permanently or temporarily

Using those factors, among others, will help ensure only the right people can access documents — without making it too laborious to determine who can see what, where, and when.

2. Secure sharing

If you share an important piece of information by taking it outside your document security solution, that data is no longer secure. That said, just about any type of business will need to send information to external parties. Whether you need to share a document for payment purposes, identifying customers, completing tax paperwork, or any other reason, a document security solution should include methods for secure sharing.

Secure sharing lets you dictate who can access documents using many of the same factors listed above. For instance, you could grant access to individual accounts or to anyone with an email belonging to a certain domain, but only when accessed from their work computer. You can also set time limits so the document is only available when needed.

3. Encryption

Access control and secure sharing are important, but how do you enforce those measures? The answer is encryption. By storing documents in an encrypted format, you can ensure that anyone who manages to access them improperly will also have to find a way to decrypt them before they can read them.

Encryption isn’t just handy for discouraging threat actors. It also helps enforce document security solutions even after files leave your network. For instance, it can work with your access control solution to only decrypt a document if the user is logging in from a work laptop or from a secure Wi-Fi network.

Did You Know?:The RICOH Black and White Multifunction Laser Printer 132 MF’s Locked Print feature ensures only authorized parties can retrieve sensitive materials. Click here to learn more.

4. Audit trails

How do you know who actually opened a memo rather than just who got a link to it? How do you know whether someone with edit privileges made changes to the file? You could go through the lengthy and error-prone process of asking employees yourself, relying on read/unread notifications, or manually comparing versions of documents based on timelines. However, it’s much more efficient to use the built-in audit trails provided by your document security solution.

Audit trails are a powerful tool for accountability as well as security. With a comprehensive set of audit trails built into your solution, you never need to wonder who saw what and when — all you need to do is check the log.

5. Ease of use

All of the features we’ve mentioned so far are great to have. Unfortunately, if your document security solution is too hard to use, one of two things is likely to happen:

• Employees will spend so much time trying to learn the new systems and dealing with the related busy work that any efficiency gains will be neutralized.
• Employees will use other means to find and share the information they need (part of what is commonly called shadow IT). These solutions are often much less secure.

That’s why choosing an easy-to-use document security solution is just as important as any of the previous considerations. Employees should be able to start using the system with minimal training, and it should also impose as few extra steps as possible on their daily duties. This helps ensure you don’t sacrifice efficiency for security and that employees don’t feel compelled to seek other solutions.

How to find the right document security solution for your business

At Ricoh, we take great pride in building hardware and software that provides the first step to digital transformation. That includes working with an extensive suite of partners who can help manage and secure all of your organization’s precious information. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, book a consultation with one of our experts today.

Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal or financial advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed professional regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.