As if keeping up with IT security best practices and compliance regulations for your own organization wasn’t challenging enough, now there is an added layer – the security risks posed by your third-party relationships!
With third-parties in the top 3 causes of data breaches, it’s no wonder that the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have highlighted third-party reviews as a focus for their compliance audits.
Whether or not you are under regulatory compliance to review your third-party vendors, think about the risks involved. These relationships often involve sharing of (or at least access to) your confidential, proprietary information and systems. Are they following the same IT security best practices that you do? And how do you know?
Our Vendor Management Services use a risk-based approach to evaluate third-party security controls. We can provide you with the insight you need to understand your level of risk based on the nature of the what they have access to, their security posture, and the potential consequences. We can also provide recommendations for your vendor based on our findings and help them minimize risk so you don’t have to worry about no longer being able to work with a vendor that is key to your business if they are found to be less proactive about IT security than you would like to see.
So why worry about it until you have a problem? Compliance and proactive prevention aside, the latest data breach cost figure from the Ponemon Institute was $145 PER RECORD. Multiply that by your database of client, patient, and/or employee information and it becomes clear why it is far more costly to clean up after an exposure than it is to take some simple measures toward prevention.
