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.

‍

Are You Doing Everything You Can to Protect Your Business’ Data?

Every single day, your business generates massive amounts of operational data. When a core database or financial record suddenly becomes inaccessible, your operations halt immediately. The primary vulnerability for most companies right now is an over-reliance on legacy security tools.

June 15, 2026

From Volatility to Predictability: Stabilizing Your Business IT Costs

The antiquated approach to managing information technology support brings a massive amount of financial volatility to your business. You wait for something to break, your team suffers through unexpected downtime, and then you pay an unpredictable invoice to get everything running again. It is an unstable loop that makes budgeting impossible and creates immense operational stress.

June 12, 2026

Want to Reduce Password Resets AND Make the Workplace More Secure?

The average small business now relies on dozens of different software-as-a-service web platforms to handle daily operations, including billing, customer tracking, and team communication. For your staff, this digital growth has created severe password fatigue. Employees are forced to remember dozens of complex logins, which leads to a constant loop of locked accounts, broken workflows, and lost productivity that stalls your business day.

Welcome to the First Column IT Tech Blog