Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Don't Forget Security When Outsourcing

Computerworld reports many companies fail to take into account cultural differences that may affect their security when outsourcing, according to experts attending the Gartner IT Security Summit in London today.

At issue is not so much the security that outsourcing service providers use to protect companies' systems -- such as firewalls and data backup -- as it is the cultural differences, Iyengar said. For instance, standards of privacy are often looser in India because it's a close-knit society where, say, reading someone else's e-mail wouldn't be considered much of an intrusion.

"Fifty percent of companies understand that there are security issues with offshoring, but the real issues are cultural and in compliance and regulation," said Lawrence Lerner, senior technical architect of the Advanced Solutions Group at Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.

One way of ensuring that security and regulatory compliance concerns are met is by putting the onus on the outsourcing provider and writing it into the contract, he said. "It pays dividends to have the provider responsible for these issues," Balchin said. "For us, it's a distraction from our core business."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home