You need to ensure that the people you’re collecting data from are who they say they are to ensure the security of your customer data. Ensuring that the person on the other side is a human and not a bot or some other type of fraudster is crucial.
Some examples of identity verification include:
- Using an ID scanner to scan a driver’s license or passport
- Turning on your webcam so someone can verify your face
- Sending out an SMS message to check if you have access to their phone number
Understanding Their Data, Systems, and Processes
It’s not enough to understand the information you’ll be receiving. Data has a context. That context gets provided by the systems and processes that organize it.
Understanding how they work together is key to gaining insight into how the data gets shared originated and its value. As a result, you can more accurately identify potential risks, such as:
- Unnecessarily sensitive data being accidentally transferred – because of how it gets organized in their system, they may not realize it’s sensitive still.
- Difficulty in data migration; migrating data from one system to another is fraught with numerous challenges such as poor onboarding experience for customers, delayed implementations, etc. Some special tools will cover critical difficulties when migrating data and focusing on the transformation, making the process quicker with superior customization options. Data onboarding platforms such as FlatFile or OneSchema are some of the most popular softwares used by businesses. However, any other similar platform to Flatfile is just as practical.
- Lack of awareness that additional risk may exist – if they’re operating under old assumptions about the nature of their data.
- Confirm your understanding with them
Security Risk Assessment
A security risk assessment is a systematic and thorough evaluation of the potential risks that can impact your business as you disclose confidential data to customers or clients. A thorough risk assessment considers all relevant factors that might compromise your customer’s privacy. It can include human error, equipment failure, software malfunction, malicious hacking, or theft.
Prepare for a security risk assessment. It helps determine the project scope and determine who will get involved in it. Security professionals often use a questionnaire to gather information about internal controls and processes related to access procedures and data handling policies. Numerous solutions are available in this domain, like Au10tix solutions, and you can check their offerings before finalizing a trusted partner.
This information can then get used as a baseline against which improvements get measured. For instance, if you are currently running your business with outdated applications or old operating systems such as Windows 7 or older macOS versions, these details should help identify specific areas where upgrades may be necessary.
Current Cybersecurity Infrastructure
Ensuring that you understand the current state of your customer’s cybersecurity is important to identify any areas that need work. It will provide the information you need to determine what kind of system needs to be in place or how an existing system can be improved or added on to protect sensitive data.
By understanding where there may be security gaps, it’s easier to prevent breaches and identify potential vulnerabilities.
You can conduct a full audit on their systems, with certain tests including penetration testing, malware scanning, and phishing detection. These tests can cover every aspect of their cybersecurity infrastructure, including hardware and software configurations, operating systems, and applications running within an organization’s network environment.
You can consider monitoring your customer’s behaviors as a means of identifying suspicious activity within the system. Also training your employees with anti money laundering course is one of the key steps organizations can take to manage AML risk and reinforce a culture of ethics and compliance. This information will help you build a more effective security model for protecting confidential data from malicious outsiders and inside threats such as disgruntled employees.
Testing the System for Vulnerabilities
Before going live, test your system for vulnerabilities.
You can perform a vulnerability assessment. It identifies potential areas where security breaches can happen. For example, look at the system’s features (like password protection) and see how well they hold up against different attack scenarios.
You can perform an impact analysis. During this step, you determine the extent of the damage resulting from a cybersecurity breach on each business function and asset.
Another thing to do is perform a risk analysis to determine what risks may exist when adopting new technology and processes.
Implementing Data Protection Policies and Procedures
When you start on a fitness journey, it’s important to establish clear goals from the beginning. Often, people who have taken time off from exercise feel like they have to “get back in shape,” but this is far too broad of a goal.
You’re doing yourself a disservice by not re-assessing and defining your goals because it will make it harder for you to
- Build up momentum
- Identify your successes
- Track your progress
Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan
You can set SMART goals. Setting goals is a smart way to achieve success, but many people make the mistake of setting vague, amorphous goals. By setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely (SMART) goals, you can better ensure that what you set out to accomplish will get achieved.
You can be ambitious. Some people think that if they don’t set high expectations for themselves when it comes to working out, then they won’t be disappointed as they fail to meet their lofty goals.
Regularly Test Your System for Vulnerabilities
It’s important to regularly test all of your systems for vulnerabilities. We recommend doing this at least every three months for two reasons. First, new vulnerabilities are found in systems regularly, and it’s good to keep up with that. Second, you may not be aware of all of the vulnerabilities in your system, and it’s good to check for those too.
When testing your systems, think about getting a third party involved to do the testing. Many security specialists can assist you in identifying any potential issues with your system to help protect the confidential information of your customers.
You can remember that there are different types of security vulnerabilities, so make sure that you’re checking for everything.
Conclusion
By assessing vulnerabilities and following through on the results, you can take your business to the next level. Vulnerability assessments are a valuable tool for finding weaknesses in your system’s security and addressing them. Don’t let a lack of knowledge stop you from maximizing your potential.
At this point, you already know how important it is to assess vulnerabilities when onboarding new customers. Where do you go from here? One option is to conduct a vulnerability assessment yourself.
You may be surprised at how easy it is to find and correct security flaws when you have the right tools, like our robust vulnerability assessment software. In addition, we have several resources on our site if you’d like more information about these assessments or the product itself.
