The internet has become an innate part of our life. From our personal lives to our professional lives and our finances, we are all gravitating to the digital world. This increased accessibility and availability of data and everything going digital has increased our chances of being exposed to cyber threats. The digital world has made us vulnerable to malicious attacks, privacy invasions, frauds, and other cybercrimes.

Though we are all aware of the increased cyberattacks, we have never paid head to safeguard ourselves from the same. Cybersecurity protects us from hackers, intruders, and cybercriminals, posing a threat to the data and information shared by us.

When talking about cybersecurity, document security becomes of prime importance. It is one of the significant issues faced by businesses operating all across the globe. Let us understand what document security is and why it plays a significant role in cybersecurity.

What is Document Security, and why is it essential?

As the term itself suggests, document security maintains the security of the important documents that are stored, filed, and backed up and the disposal of documents that are eventually no longer needed.

Documents shared online face major security threats; hence one needs to realize the importance of developing a secured backup and storage plan for the documents.

It also ensures the flexibility of access rights. The viewers of the documents can either be given read-only access or can be given viewing and editing privileges. It also ensures password security on essential documents. This means that if any user wants to access the document, he/she will have to do so by entering the authentic password.

When talking about document security, robust document management software plays a vital role.

What is a Document Management System?

A Document Management System, as the name suggests, is a system that is used to receive, track, and manage and to store documents reducing the need for paper. The prime reason behind the document management system’s introduction was to convert paper documents to digital documents. Hence, a DMS is also referred to as an electronic filing cabinet.

No Document Management Software is useful and complete without robust document security options in place. Before moving to the benefits of a DMS, let us first understand how a DMS works.

  • A Document management system needs to conduct document capture from the source. Document capture is the system’s ability to store and save the documents so that they can be used later as and when required. Document capture can be done for paper documents, emails, system-generated reports, and documents from any application.
  • Document Management System offers central document storage, which is crucial for managing and retaining documents from all over the world. The central document storage can be used for both static well as dynamic content.
  • Document security is also an essential and crucial part of central access. A document management system offers document security in two different ways. Firstly, it incorporates a version control. This helps in tracking the changes that have been made to the documents.

    Secondly, it includes permissions so that you can control access to the documents. This ensures that the owner of the document has the right to decide who can access what documents. These rights can vary from rights to the author, change, revise, route, or delete documents.
  • The Document management system also ensures document retrieval and redistribution. The process of document retrieval should be fast enough to be useful. It gives the search feature to retrieve a document by using certain keywords. On the other hand, document distribution is one of the key components of DMS. It allows you to send the documents to customers, vendors, as well as to employees.

Why is a Document Management System beneficial?

A document management system provides several benefits to the user and ensures increased document security. Here are some of the benefits of a robust Document Management System:

  • It is expensive to store the documents physically in a paper format. Document Management System software is a solution that reduces the need to store the documents in files, cabinets, boxes, and other valuable space. It reduces the space, primarily the physical space that is taken up in storing physical documents.
  • It increases the security of critical documents by keeping sensitive data protected. DMS ensures increased control over sensitive and confidential documents. These documents can be controlled at a folder level deciding the access that is to be allowed to specific individuals or groups. The document owner can also audit as to who viewed the documents, when it was viewed, and what changes have been made to it. There is also an option to allow for automated alerts for managed documents.
  • There are certain documents that require complex compliances. The non-conformance of the compliances on these documents can result in fines, revoking of a license, and in some instances, can also result in criminal liability. A proper Document Management System reduces the risk of non-compliance.
  • Retrieval of documents becomes easy with a Document Management Software that offers cloud backup of the documents. Retrieving documents otherwise is a very time-consuming process. DMS is a time-saving tool. It facilitates remote access to sensitive and important documents. All you need to access your document safely anytime, anywhere is a good internet connection.
  • DMS makes information sharing and collaboration much easier for the users of the documents. The documents that are captured from multiple sources can be easily accessed from multiple locations. It becomes easier to share the documents via email or through the internet.
  • Every Document Management System has a data backup and data recovery plan. The documents being stored online are protected from fire and flood or any other disaster. Documents of a DMS are easily traceable and hence can be recovered easily.
  • A sound Document Management System in place offers flexibility, peace of mind, competitiveness, as well as improved client relationships. This ensures increased productivity, better customer relationships, and increased client satisfaction. A proper DMS improves the efficiency of the teams at the organization.
  • It offers cloud backup of the documents with increased security. A cloud backup of important documents makes it easier for the users of the document to access it from anywhere with ease.

A robust Document Management System ensures document security, thereby playing a significant role in cybersecurity. It prevents the documents from being tampered or misused by hackers and cybercriminals in the digital world.