Often times a financial enterprise will take advantage of oursourcing their IT to third party vendors. When this happens, sensitive information usually needs to be transmitted and stored with the third party throughout the course of the partnership. As such, a number of regulatory agencies including the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) require that your own risk management policies cover the vendor as well. This may sound quite simple in theory, but it could lead to potential oversight in certain areas that can leave the data open to hackers, improper transmission, or complete loss. This is where vendor risk management learning courses and certification programs are of use to a wide range of financial corporations and entities.
Maintaining a Sound Strategy for Vendor Management
The first area of business when dealing with a third party source should include a contract that outlines the relationship between the two parties. It should also cover the inclusion of monitoring to ensure that security stipulations are met. These stipulations should also clearly include the fact that any third party you are working with must meet the regulatory compliance within your chosen industry, such as the GLBA. This is where potential problems can arise. If a third party is not compliant, or not as secure as your own enterprise, security can be lost or transmitted to areas it was never meant to end up.
Make Use of Training Seminars and Certification Courses
By attending a training program specifically designed to provide an independent view of your vendor regulation compliance, you can quickly and easily learn to identify potential problems and how to report or remedy them. Complete training courses are designed to cover key control areas including governance, policy, planning the outsource entity, risk assessment with the third party, selection of the vendor, contract structuring and review, ongoing monitoring and more. In addition, training courses are often times provided in formats which can be reviewed by your security executive anytime it is needed for an initial course as well as refreshers throughout the year and for subsequent years. This may include web-based training, hardcopies, or self-paced eLearning courses. Vendor risk assessment and monitoring is one of the areas many corporations fail, which put their own regulatory compliance and certifications in jeopardy. Don’t let the simple oversight of vendor certification put a knot in your partnership.
Don’t let your vendor risk management fall through the cracks. Learn how to keep your third party partnerships secure and sound with training from the Compliance Education Institute.
