One of the most important aspects of your applicant tracking system (ATS) is how it handles data security. With 16 million temporary and contract employees in the U.S., there is no shortage of private information for staffing agencies to protect.

Your ATS often stores data such as addresses, social security numbers, and tax information. With cyber attacks on the rise, how do you know if your ATS is prepared to prevent security breaches and protect your data?

Our cyber security expert and Chief Information Officer Kevin Prow shares three questions you should ask when evaluating the data security of an ATS.

1. How does my ATS protect my data?

Your staffing software likely has a compliance framework detailing aspects of their security program. This can include their perimeter defense, encryption, authentication, and access control.

While a compliance framework is important, it’s not the same as securing the environment. How is your ATS making sure no one follows an authorized user into their building? If they have authentication processes, how are they ensuring users aren’t using compromised passwords?

2. How does my ATS stop people from getting into the environment unauthorized?

Data lives in physical spaces. Even files you have on the cloud are stored on physical servers. Because those physical spaces can be accessed by individuals, it’s important to have security measures in place to prevent unauthorized access.

How is your ATS securing their building? How are they securing data and monitoring activity within the building?

Having perimeter defenses in place on the network is another important part of preventing intrusion and protecting your data. Just like the lock on your company’s door, your ATS uses routers and firewalls to control traffic and and out of the network. Unfortunately, even the most robust perimeter defense isn’t always enough to keep cyber criminals out of the network. That’s why your ATS needs to use multiple layers of security to protect your data.

3. Beyond defense: How does my ATS know if a data breach has occurred?

Too often, companies focus on only that perimeter layer of security. But what if someone has already breached the system? If your company focuses only prevention, there’s no one looking inside to know if someone is already in the network.

The average time it takes a company to detect a cyber breach is 200 days. In some cases, cyber criminals have had access to company systems for years before a breach was detected.

At TempWorks, we continuously monitor what’s happening inside our network. Is there traffic that doesn’t add up? Are there suspicious users logging in from unknown locations? Our security professionals and IT professionals actively monitor our environment for suspicious activity while implementing top-notch security measures.

When choosing your ATS provider, make sure they are armed with the security and IT professionals necessary to keeping your data secure. You can also prevent data breaches by implementing security measures within your company.