Often, security breaches are a result of third-party involvement. Several organizations trust third-party vendors more than their internal staff. The belief comes from the fact that third-party vendors, especially the big names would have their own security policies and processes before they deal with their customers. Although this may be true, organizations should conduct their own checks on outside vendors. Managing those risks are not easy.
Hence Service Level Agreements (SLA) are very important when dealing with third parties. Companies must make sure that certain security pieces are covered in their SLAs. Areas to cover are information security, information privacy, threat and risk analysis, compliance in their own environment, way to enforce compliance, internal audit access and several more. These areas will cover a significant portion of third-party risk management.
However, they are only a small piece of third-party security mangement. In spite of all this, it is important to note that the party that is ultimately responsible is the organization that is hiring the third-party.
To learn more about covering all areas of compliance, get in touch with Omega at pci@www.omegasecure.com.
