How to Make Sure Your Vendors Are as Secure as They Say

June 2, 2025

You rely on your vendors to conduct business, but these vendors are just as susceptible to cyberattacks as your business is. How can you make sure you’re working with vendors who prioritize security? That’s what we’re covering in today’s blog.

How to Determine Your Vendors’ Level of Security

Know Who You’re Working With

Understand that any vendor you work with will have access to a certain amount of information for your business. Make sure you keep a list of who’s doing what for you, as well as what data they can access. Furthermore, make sure that these vendors are handling that access responsibly, and don’t offer more permissions than necessary.

Do Your Due Diligence

Take some time to get to know your vendors, including how they operate and maintain their security. Use a checklist during these interviews to help you assess their policies and procedures. Remember to base your decisions on what your vendors actually do for security, not what they claim to do, and you should routinely assess whether the current arrangements are working for your organization.

Understand Your Contracts

Comb through any contracts with scrutiny to know what your vendors are liable for in the event of a data breach or other similar cybersecurity incident. The last thing you want is to be caught off-guard by stipulations you weren’t even aware of in the first place, or a vendor shadily (and legally) passing the blame elsewhere.

Operate on a “Need to Know” Basis

Your vendors should also operate under the principle of least privilege, where you only give them access to the tools and resources they absolutely need for their roles and responsibilities. Give them just enough of what they need to provide the services you expect from them. This keeps a cyberattack from disrupting too much should one actually occur.

Go Ahead with Your Plans

Don’t make decisions regarding your vendors haphazardly. If you’re satisfied with a vendor, make sure they stay ahead of trends with security and keep them in the loop should anything change along the way. It also helps to check in with them during any major widespread cybersecurity issue to see what they’re doing about it.

First Column IT can help your business stay ahead of vendor security with our managed services. Learn more today by calling us at (571) 470-5594.

‍

Fix Your IT Budget By Addressing These Three Key Pain Points

If there’s one part of any organization’s operational expenses that concerns many business owners, it’s IT expenses. In fact, some companies have so little control over their IT expenses that they practically hemorrhage money, leading to limited capacity for growth and investment in other parts of the organization that desperately need the help. How can you fix your IT spending and improve your organization as a whole?

March 25, 2024

A Focus on Collaboration Helps Every Business

In today’s business, teamwork is absolutely necessary to make good things happen. One of the best ways to do this is through collaboration. However, putting together a strategy that can get projects out the door quicker or fulfill services more effectively is not always easy. Today, we’ll take a look at modern collaboration and how technology plays a major role.

March 22, 2024

What Small Businesses Can Learn from the UnitedHealth Hack

Cyberattacks often attack healthcare organizations, including businesses and vendors they associate with, primarily due to how lucrative they can be. One particularly nasty hack is just one of the many organizations which have been featured in headlines due to their inability to protect against security threats. Let’s explore this new situation with UnitedHealth Group and see if there is anything you can learn from it.

Welcome to the First Column IT Tech Blog