Want to train your employees securely? Learn which LMS security features are essential to protect company data and ensure excellent learning outcomes.
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In today's digital age with global competition, companies invest heavily in their learning management system (LMS) to train employees and stay on the cutting edge. That said, paying attention to LMS security is also critical to protecting employees’ personal information and the company's proprietary training content. Knowing that the course content you have worked really hard to create is only reaching the people it is meant to bring peace of mind.
What are some of the security features that organizations should look for in an LMS to protect valuable data? That is what our detailed guide discusses, alongside the reasons why LMS security is more important than ever.
Let's get into the details.
Online courses have exploded in recent years, and so have the number of companies joining them to train their employees.
Source: Samelane
Building an online course system isn't just about providing learning materials, whether it is video-based training or just documents. You must take the platform's data security seriously, not only to protect business data, but also the data of tens or hundreds of users logging in.
Be it a small team that you are dealing with or scaling up to provide course content to hundreds, data security should be among your top priorities.
Another crucial reason for protecting LMS data is that data breaches can be extremely detrimental to any organization. As a business, you have proprietary information that is not shared with others, such as the personal information of employees and your customers or clients. An attack that compromises these data points can hamper the learning environment and damage business operations.
According to the Chief Information Security Officers (CISO), three in four US companies were prone to cyberattacks. It is not just a theoretical figure, as the estimated cost of these attacks in 2024 amounted to 452.3 billion USD.
Discussed below are the top 10 security features that make the best enterprise learning management system. These will ensure that you keep training your employees without worrying about data breaches.
Source: WeForum
You must have heard of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) at some point because it is a crucial protocol for securing online data. It is a code that encrypts the data transferred from a webpage to a user's browser. Without SSL, all the traffic is up for grabs, as it is unencrypted.
The use of SSL has expanded massively in recent years, signifying how critical it is to online data privacy. In 2023, around 82.9% of websites had an SSL certificate, compared to 18.5% just five years ago—a whopping 64.4% increase!
Source: SSLinsights
After using SSL protocols, you ensure that the data is accessible only to the webpage/LMS owner and the user logging in. All the online communication that happens afterward stays safe, and the information stays private.
Another major benefit of SSL encryption is that it protects sensitive data like credit card credentials. So, if your employees are filling in these details after you have installed SSL encryption, there is no need to worry about data breaches.
Pro Tip: Make sure all your subdomains have SSL installed instead of just focusing on the main website.
Next on our list of LMS security features is single sign-on (SSO), which lets users sign in to multiple systems using a single set of credentials. When a user logs into one application, SSO records the credentials and applies them across various connected applications, regardless of the platform or technology. It provides an incredible level of ease and convenience for LMS users who do not wish to log in every single time for multiple platforms or applications.
A practical example would be a user logging into their Google account. The system captures their credentials and applies them to associated applications like YouTube, Gmail, and the like. In the context of LMS, employees and trainees can use their work email to log in instead of creating new login credentials.
Having SSO integration on your LMS makes it more secure and provides users with easier and more streamlined access to resources.
Most people use the same passwords for different platforms, which makes it easier for hackers to breach sensitive data. Reports suggest that 3 in 4 people use poor password practices that can lead to hacked accounts and stolen data.
Source: Good Firms
Implementing mandatory password complexity is a must to prevent this from becoming a serious issue with your LMS security. Here are some of the strategies that you can implement to protect valuable data:
A password with all of these elements becomes much harder for even the most sophisticated hackers to crack. Make sure you remind employees whenever they use a weak password and refuse registration until they use a better one.
You can introduce a password manager to the system that automatically suggests complex passwords, saving employees time and memorization.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a crucial security feature to enhance LMS protection.
With 2FA, users are required to verify their identity through two independent methods: a password that they already know and something they have (such as a one-time code sent in email or text messages). This dual-layered approach ensures that even when the password is compromised, unauthorized access can still be prevented.
Source: AdminControl
For an LMS, 2FA is especially crucial because it protects sensitive data, employee assessments, proprietary course materials, and financial transactions. Implementing this feature builds user confidence by demonstrating a commitment to security.
No matter how many security protocols you implement, online data still remains at risk of malware. Therefore, your LMS should back up all the data automatically to remain safe.
The best way to ensure this is to create a bulletproof content production process. It is a process to create engaging training courses that withstand potential risks and follow these practices in the context of data security:
Protecting intellectual property is one of the major concerns of any business in the modern age. Corporate Research and Investigations Limited (CRI Group™), intellectual property theft annually amounts to $225 billion to $600 billion in the US alone.
The numbers clearly suggest that it is a serious issue, and you need to prevent people from downloading your resources, repackaging them, and selling them to third parties.
Make sure your LMS has locked content that cannot be downloaded unless specified and authorized otherwise. Whether it is documents, videos, or audio, it is crucial to restrict their downloadable access. It ensures that the course content you have designed after spending weeks and months doesn't get stolen and only reaches the people it is meant to.
One of the most critical aspects of efficient training management is defining the structure and hierarchy for learners. If there is no hierarchy, everyone is free to do anything at any time. For instance, a student could delete course content or alter it, as there are no defined roles. As a course manager and instructor, you certainly want to avoid these situations.
A positive learning environment begins with clearly defined structure and hierarchies. User roles should be an indispensable administrative feature that gives permissions to employees and prevents anyone else from accessing data.
IP restrictions are a powerful security feature that prevents unauthorized access to LMS by limiting logins to specific IP addresses or geographical locations. This ensures that only employees accessing the LMS from trusted networks, such as the company's office or homes, can log in.
Source: Research.com
This feature is particularly useful for organizations prone to content theft that want to maximize control over their data. For instance, an organization might restrict access to its LMS on-site, ensuring that employees access the course materials while they are within the office premises. Similarly, businesses offering online training can limit employees' access to approved devices and networks.
IP restrictions also serve as a deterrent to cyberattacks and are critical for LMS security:
Audit logs provide a detailed record of all system activities, such as user logins, content access, data uploads, and administrative changes. By capturing every action performed on the LMS, audit logs help administrators monitor and identify behavior across the platform. For instance, multiple failed login attempts can suggest a brute-force attack, and unauthorized changes to course materials might point toward a breach.
Audit logs help trace the origins of the login attempts, the actor, their source (country, hostname, IP address, and the like), and the event timestamp. They also support compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, by promoting transparency in data handling.
When creating or choosing an online LMS for your course content, compliance with security protocols should be a top priority. One of the best and easiest ways to ensure it is to pick an LMS that is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
It is an advanced security framework developed by the European Union to regulate the use of data by organizations. It provides users more control over their data by deciding how businesses use it. Even if you do not operate within the EU, LMS packages with GDPR compliance are beneficial.
After knowing all the crucial security features of a reliable LMS, you are ready to pick a system that supports your growth efforts. Although there are countless online learning platforms, Coursebox is at the forefront of the AI online training revolution.
Established in 180+ countries with courses developed in 60+ languages, Coursebox is a globally recognized AI learning platform. It has all the important security features that protect your company data and ensure that you train employees with peace of mind.
We use advanced AI with automated instructors that grade the assignments and provide instant answers. It also helps you design the structure of courses and develop recent quizzes without having to put in any significant effort. Also, humans no longer need to stay connected to respond to queries; the AI assistant will do it 24/7.
With this much ease of use and reliability, finding anything better than Coursebox is hard. So, start your 30-day free trial today and upgrade to highly affordable plans when you get used to the platform.
An LMS database is the central storage system where all the information related to courses, learners, their progress, assignments, activities, and the like is managed. It allows administrators and instructors to track and report the progress of learners within an organization and provides insights into the performance of particular courses.
LMS credentials refer to the username and password or any other information used to access the LMS. These credentials serve as verification to ensure that an authorized person is logging in.
LMS authentication means verifying a user's identity before they access the platform. If the system senses a potential breach, it alerts the real user via email or phone number to help them secure their account.
An LMS usually collects data on learner progress, engagement levels, assessment performance, course completion rates, and much more. This data is essential to ensure that employees are actually performing well during training and whether they need any help. It also helps organizations determine whether their courses are actually impactful or need modification.
The main purpose of an LMS is to provide a centralized platform for managing, delivering, and tracking online learning content. Companies use it to train employees remotely and save a lot of money. With the arrival of AI, quality LMS models provide advanced automation for 24/7 assistance, quiz generation, and much more.
