Information security in supplier relationships

The organization must maintain a list of partners who have access to confidential information. System vendors and processors of personal data are listed separately from other stakeholders because they play an active role in the processing of data.

We define in advance the types of suppliers with whom cooperation requires access to confidential information or their processing areas, and through this e.g. demands data processing contracts. Such supplier types can be, for example, IT services, logistics, financial management and IT infrastructure components.

The organization has defined the certifications or standards required of key partners. Commonly recognized standards related to cyber security include:

• ISO 27001 (information security management system)
• SOC2 (general security, also called SSAE 16)
• ISO 27701 (data protection management system)
• ISO 27017 (cyber security in cloud services) or ISO 27018 (data protection in cloud services)
• other popular e.g. NIST (general), CSA (cloud software), PCI DSS (card payments and data)

Certifications required from partners can make organization's own partner management more efficient and provide good evidence of a particular level of security or privacy of the partner.

The processing agreement binds the actions of the data processor (such as the system vendor).

It can be important for us to ensure an important partner takes responsibility of e.g. access control (logging) and data recovery at the end of the contract according to our preferred policies.