When outsourcing to a third-party firm, your startup company often needs to share company and customer data. While this is an integral part of the process, it can raise concerns about data security. So, how do you ensure that everything is well-protected? Let’s take a look.
The Data Security Concerns During Outsourcing
To better appreciate the importance of data security when outsourcing, you should know the concerns. These concerns can vary based on what you are outsourcing. But they can fall into several major categories.
Data Leaks
Leaks are one of the most common data security that you will encounter. When letting an external party to your company network, you create an opening that cybercriminals can abuse. They can intercept your communications and steal data shared between you and them.
The data leak can also happen on the provider side. If they have weak data protection measures, attackers can target their system and expose your company data. Such a breach can create losses for you, not to mention eroding customer trust.
Hacking
In the above data security threats, perpetrators often simply wait for the right time to intercept communication and steal data. With hacking, however, there is an active attempt to break into a system. A provider that doesn’t have the right kind of security system can easily fall for such attacks.
Note that hacking isn’t just about stealing data. There can be a variety of nefarious purposes behind it. For instance, hackers can use ransomware to disrupt the provider’s system and force them to pay to have it restored. Such disruptions will affect your operations, resulting in a lot of losses.
Misuse Of Client Data
Data security threats can also come from within. While the provider itself might be trustworthy, there could be unscrupulous individuals within its ranks who can take advantage of their access to your data. Misuse can range from using customer information for fraudulent transactions to outright selling it to other parties.
If that happens, it can lead to severe distrust from your customers, causing you to lose them. Additionally, it can affect your relationship with the provider. All of these will hurt your startup company, slowing its growth.
Enhancing Your Startup Company Security Measures
To avoid such risks, your startup company needs to beef up security even before you start outsourcing. Here, you need to review your internal security processes. Your goal is to catch areas where potential data leaks can occur.
One wrong assertion to avoid is that cybercriminals won\’t target a small startup company like yours. Keep in mind that even basic customer and company data is still invaluable.
As such, make sure that your data collection and processing system is up to the security standards that you want to pursue. Run tests to see how well it holds up and make the necessary security changes.
Improving How Employees Handle Company Data
Another area you should account for when improving internal data security is how your employees handle company and customer data. Review your access protocol to see whether only the right people can get to the data. You would also want to see how departments hand it over to each other as needed. During this review, you will be able to spot incorrect practices that might lead to data breaches.
All the security protocols you have laid out for your in-house team would serve as the basis for the measures applied to the outsourced team. Before signing up the provider, talk to them to see whether they would agree with these protocols. In some cases, the company might want to request a compromise that fits their data security setup.
Assessing The Outsourcing Provider’s Data Security
The next step of boosting company data security when outsourcing is assessing the provider’s security procedures. For this one, you need to look at several areas.
- Physical security: The outsourcing firm’s office should have all the essential measures to protect its servers from unwanted access.
- Technology: The provider’s computer systems should have adequate security to protect client data further.
- Staff: Your outsourcing partner should provide you with information on its checking process that ensures its teams follow its data handling regulations.
Compare these areas with your security processes to determine their compatibility. Get as much information as you can from the provider for a more accurate assessment. A good provider would be willing to guide you through their data security protocols.
Adding More Layers Of Protection For Your Startup company
Even with the above procedures in place, you would still want to add some more layers to your startup company\’s security net. One such layer to include is a non-disclosure agreement. This document outlines the specific set of confidential information that both you and the outsourcing firm should not disclose to external parties.
When drafting your NDA, you need to be clear about the scope of the confidentiality clause. For highly confidential data, the clause should be effective even after the outsourcing partnership has ended. Additionally, be clear about the sanctions in case of breach of contract. These can include fines, termination of the outsourcing contract, or litigation.
Providing Access To External Teams
Another great way to ensure data security is to provide outsourced agents with unique access accounts. With these, you can easily track who accesses your data from the other side. That also gives you better control since you can restrict access to specific data only to authorized accounts.
Teaching your outsourced team how to handle your company data will also help in protecting it. Some of the topics to cover include proper data input and storage in your servers. You can also tackle things like phishing that can be used against them. All of these will help the outsourced team be more conscious about securing your data.
Protect Your Startup Company Data When Working With Third Parties
When implemented correctly, all of these strategies will ensure that both you and your outsourcing partner can protect your data effectively. But you should still be vigilant and get the right partner for the job. At Virtua Outsourcing Solutions, we have made it our mission to help clients like you safeguard your data. Contact us today and get access to a secure outsourcing service.