Considering data security and confidentiality is paramount when embarking on an outsourcing program, especially for regulate entities in the financial industry. Contrary to popular belief, the responsibility to comply with privacy and input confidentiality regulations is not passed on to the outsourcing services provider, but rather remains with the purchaser of outsourcing services. Therefore, buyers of outsourcing services are well advised to closely examine how prospective outsourcing service provider’s deal with physical and information technology security, as well as data confidentiality.
Assessing the provider’s information confidentiality and stability capabilities stars with knowing and determining what to ask for.
The following are eight tips to help outsourcing securely and to maintain confidentiality of input.
1. Get the house in order – before proceeding outside, it is necessary to make the house in order. There must be a realistic security policy that includes classification of statistic and that distinguishes common from sensitive information and how every kind of info should be handled as well. A good security policy could include clearly defined and understood guidelines and standards which have been agreed upon by business managers and IT professionals in the company.
2. Understanding intellectual and privacy property mindset – numerous countries are very lax when it comes to property protection laws. A company seeking outsourcing services should ensure that the vendor or choice is willing to adhere to one’s privacy and intellectual property policies because a misunderstanding could be very costly.
3. Choosing vendors carefully – the service provider should also have stringent safety policies, beginning with the hiring process. This rule applies to all kinds of sellers, but most particularly to offshore organizations. Defense policies appear great on paper, but it should be ascertained that they are enforced to the full extent. A vendor that does not allow people bringing USB devices to an organization is useless unless there is specific control that prevents data from being copied to this kind of device.
4. Monitoring traffic – it is important for a company to make certain that the service provider will monitor outbound web traffic and emails for possible information leaks.
5. Providing education – it’s paramount that the vendor educates employees when it comes to safeguarding and handling sensitive info because its disclosure is not always malicious. A lot of cases exist wherein an employee took data home to work on and left it in a laptop in unencrypted files.
6. Principle of less usage – adhering to the principle of least privilege is a guide and a way of enforcing it. In other words, there should be a means of monitoring and enforcing material exceptions. If an employee works with ten records at one time, access to 10,000 records at one time should not be allowed.
7. Conducting safety audits – wherever there is data stored, it is imperative to cod an application/database security audit and regular network protection audits as well. The audit will determine issues with the apps, devices and databases on the network serving them and possible vulnerabilities.
8. Using protection – there must be a way of combining of database monitoring application layer firewalls and gateways. The devices have the ability of enforcing usage policies and preventing privilege abuse and vulnerability exploitation as well. Some service providers integrate both functions, which is the best approach.
Assessing the provider’s information confidentiality and stability capabilities stars with knowing and determining what to ask for.
The following are eight tips to help outsourcing securely and to maintain confidentiality of input.
1. Get the house in order – before proceeding outside, it is necessary to make the house in order. There must be a realistic security policy that includes classification of statistic and that distinguishes common from sensitive information and how every kind of info should be handled as well. A good security policy could include clearly defined and understood guidelines and standards which have been agreed upon by business managers and IT professionals in the company.
2. Understanding intellectual and privacy property mindset – numerous countries are very lax when it comes to property protection laws. A company seeking outsourcing services should ensure that the vendor or choice is willing to adhere to one’s privacy and intellectual property policies because a misunderstanding could be very costly.
3. Choosing vendors carefully – the service provider should also have stringent safety policies, beginning with the hiring process. This rule applies to all kinds of sellers, but most particularly to offshore organizations. Defense policies appear great on paper, but it should be ascertained that they are enforced to the full extent. A vendor that does not allow people bringing USB devices to an organization is useless unless there is specific control that prevents data from being copied to this kind of device.
4. Monitoring traffic – it is important for a company to make certain that the service provider will monitor outbound web traffic and emails for possible information leaks.
5. Providing education – it’s paramount that the vendor educates employees when it comes to safeguarding and handling sensitive info because its disclosure is not always malicious. A lot of cases exist wherein an employee took data home to work on and left it in a laptop in unencrypted files.
6. Principle of less usage – adhering to the principle of least privilege is a guide and a way of enforcing it. In other words, there should be a means of monitoring and enforcing material exceptions. If an employee works with ten records at one time, access to 10,000 records at one time should not be allowed.
7. Conducting safety audits – wherever there is data stored, it is imperative to cod an application/database security audit and regular network protection audits as well. The audit will determine issues with the apps, devices and databases on the network serving them and possible vulnerabilities.
8. Using protection – there must be a way of combining of database monitoring application layer firewalls and gateways. The devices have the ability of enforcing usage policies and preventing privilege abuse and vulnerability exploitation as well. Some service providers integrate both functions, which is the best approach.