How do you secure outsourced IT services?
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— The LinkedIn Team
Outsourcing IT services can offer many benefits for businesses, such as cost savings, access to specialized skills, and scalability. However, it also comes with some risks, such as data breaches, compliance issues, and loss of control. Therefore, it is essential to secure outsourced IT services and protect your data, systems, and reputation. Here are some tips on how to do that.
Assess your needs and risks
Before you outsource any IT service, you need to assess your own needs and risks. What are your business goals and requirements? What are the potential threats and vulnerabilities that you face? How sensitive and critical is the data and information that you will share with the service provider? How will you monitor and measure the performance and quality of the service? These questions will help you define the scope and expectations of the outsourcing contract and the security standards that you need to follow.
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These are great first steps, but any 3rd party will create their own layers of additional risk. The reason for outsourcing any service should help reduce risk and bring it down to an acceptable level. Conducting assessments around at least three vendors helps define the strengths and weaknesses of each and further refining the key priorities for selection. Using reference interviews from clients of the provider can further validate or weed out a provider.
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Choose a reliable and trustworthy provider
The next step is to choose a reliable and trustworthy provider that can meet your needs and risks. You need to do your due diligence and research the provider's reputation, experience, credentials, and references. You also need to check their security policies, procedures, certifications, and audits. How do they protect their own infrastructure, network, and devices? How do they handle data encryption, backup, recovery, and disposal? How do they comply with relevant laws and regulations? How do they respond to incidents and breaches? You should look for a provider that has a proven track record of delivering secure and high-quality IT services.
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Bad things can certainly happen if you foray into outsourcing lightly. Doing vendor due-diligence and understanding how your vendors secure your data (and potentially customer or investor data) is also critical. A friend recently built an ecommerce app and outsourced the integration of the payment processing. The provider that was handling the project allowed the company's Stripe API keys to be stolen and her business ended up with thousands of fraudulent transactions. Stripe ultimately held her company accountable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds, plus all the penalties and transaction fees associated with the refunds. It has nearly put them out of business, and she's been forced into investigating bankruptcy protections.
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Negotiate a clear and detailed contract
Once you have chosen a provider, you need to negotiate a clear and detailed contract that covers all aspects of the outsourcing relationship. The contract should specify the roles and responsibilities of both parties, the scope and quality of the service, the security requirements and expectations, the communication and reporting channels, the service level agreements and penalties, the dispute resolution and termination clauses, and the ownership and rights of the data and information. The contract should also include a non-disclosure agreement that binds the provider to respect your confidentiality and privacy.
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The clarity in the contract is important to protect both parties' interests and maintain a good relationship in the long run.
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Implement effective controls and monitoring
After you have signed the contract, you need to implement effective controls and monitoring to ensure that the provider is delivering the service according to the contract and the security standards. You need to establish regular communication and feedback mechanisms with the provider, such as meetings, reports, audits, and reviews. You also need to use tools and systems that allow you to track and measure the performance and quality of the service, such as dashboards, metrics, and indicators. You also need to verify and validate the security of the data and information that you share with the provider, such as encryption keys, passwords, and access rights.
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Need to follow up with provider closely to ensure they are dispatching resources in proper SLA deadlines according to the priority of the ticket.
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Train and educate your staff
Finally, you need to train and educate your staff on how to secure outsourced IT services. Your staff should be aware of the benefits and risks of outsourcing, the terms and conditions of the contract, the security policies and procedures of the provider, and the best practices and guidelines for data protection and security. Your staff should also be able to identify and report any suspicious or anomalous activities or incidents that may affect the security of the outsourced service. You should also provide your staff with the necessary tools and resources to support and collaborate with the provider effectively.
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If IT is not your core business or product but your company needs reliable technology without hiring a high-salaried professional, outsourcing might be the way to go. However, you should scale the service to the size of your organization with a view of future growth. The best and latest may not be necessary but something that is safe, secure and simple. IT companies should all definitely check certain key boxes: - reliability - responsiveness - security/confidentiality - and efficiency P.S. The cheapest may not be your best option.
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Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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One more important factor to consider is that the service provider should be considered as an extended team of the company. Not as a separate entity. This helps to avoid conflicts in accountability and also all members have a sense of the responsibility.
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