3rd Party Vendors Can Cause Major Cybersecurity Risks

Our message of the week: choose your vendors wisely. 

While there are definite benefits to outsourcing certain parts of your operations, if vendors lack strong security controls, your organization can be exposed to risk. Risk can include: operational risk, regulatory risk, financial risk and reputational risk.

Third-party information security risk management (also referred to as vendor risk management) is and should be a critical component of any information security program–and it is for all of our clients at Clarity. In order to adequately account for complete information security risk, you must also consider all third-parties that have access to said information. Failing to do so can leave vital security gaps and open your organization to serious risk of a breach.

This report observed the following findings: multi-party breaches cause 10 times the financial damage of the worst single-party breach. They also cause 26 times the damage in the most extreme case. In addition, the report found that financial organizations and business support organizations were the two most target industries to initiate ripple-generating victims. 

How can you properly manage vendors? 3 Tips for Protecting Your Information Security: 

  1. Choose qualified third party vendors with reputable reviews from colleagues or other businesses you trust. Read reviews, complete due diligence, and select vendors carefully.
  2. Keep a comprehensive and up-to-date list of all third party vendors your organization works with so they can be properly monitored.
  3. Perform IT security risk assessments at least annually, if not quarterly. Identify security gaps that may be present and address security gaps ASAP.

Third-party vendor management should be a foundational component of any comprehensive cybersecurity plan for an organization of any size, in any industry. At Clarity Technology Group, we take into account all of these factors: industry, organization size, number of employees, quantity of sensitive information, and more in order to build a personalized IT security plan that best protects your organization.

If you have questions about what it would look like to work with Clarity Technology Group, get in touch with our team here.

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