Can Outsourced Support Be More Secure?

“Security is not a state, but a process” Daria Leshchenko on why outsourcing customer support is safer than building it in-house.

A drastic shift of operations from on-site to remote made 91% of businesses increase their cybersecurity budgets in 2021. The information security market is predicted to reach $170.4 billion by 2022 and even higher if the current remote work trend goes on. 

Even though 55% of businesses allow remote work for their teams, only 42% of them had their security systems prepared for this shift. No surprise that more than half of companies have reported cybersecurity attacks since the pandemics began. 

Why is cybersecurity so important right now?

70% of customers would leave a business after a security breach. 81% say they would stop online engagement with a brand after one. 

Cybersecurity Ventures estimates global cybercrime cost to increase by 15% annually over the next 5 years. It will add up to $10.5 trillion spent annually by 2025. 

Even though we’re anticipating coming back to normal in the near future, remote work is with us for a long time, and for some businesses — forever.

80% of IT specialists report that their organizations don’t take enough cybersecurity measures. With this in mind, is it possible that outsourcing IT services may be safer than trying to secure your own remote operation? 

In-house support teams could become a perfect aim for attackers since all sensitive information is usually centralized in one location. Once hackers break into the system of customer support, they may access the rest of the company’s data.

53% of businesses find over 1000 documents with sensitive information could be accessed by every member of the team. Only 5% of folders are usually encrypted by an average business. Support teams might have: 

• Access to sensitive information.
• Knowledge or internal policies.
• Personal contacts of their management.
• Physical access to otherwise restricted areas of their working premises.

A whopping 95% of cyberattacks happen due to human errors. Various NDA agreements and fines do not always protect the team from sharing the information without authorization. Besides, a breach targeting an in-house team can still lead to an entire business infrastructure suffering. This would not be a case for a business with an outsourced customer support for two main reasons. 

1. Outsourcing allows businesses to provide the support team with as much information as they deem necessary. This might be the best way to protect not only customers’ data, but the information about the team involved in providing a service as well. Outsourcing allows businesses to track the flow of information, its release and make it as accessible to those working for or with them as they want. So if a hacker attack does take place, you can control how much data is at risk, and at least protect your internal confidential information. 
2. An outsourcing provider may have data security certifications and security protocols in place to ensure safety of its clients customers’ data. Customer support providers with multiple clients have polished business processes and work out security policies to the point when the chance for a human error or hacker intrusion is minimized. Instead of implementing all the policies in the company and retraining your team from scratch, businesses can outsource this chunk of work to providers who have already figured it out. 

Building an in-house team from scratch is a tiresome, resources- and time-consuming process and could cost 2-5 times more than an outsourced solution. That does not include the cost of numerous security certifications and structural changes a business needs to go through to establish the safety measures in place. 

Security measures are invisible — the effort becomes obvious only in case of an attack. 

Why does SupportYourApp pay so much attention to security certifications and compliance? 

The number of data breaches has increased 11% since 2018 despite 25% growth of the cybersecurity market in the same time. The more attention a business is paying to cybersecurity, the less it is prone to attacks, breaches, and leaks and the easier the process of certification will be. 

Our entire team goes through obligatory security training and tests on a regular basis. We provide GDPR-, PCI DSS-, ISO- and other security-related information to our team and ensure we constantly follow every rule. 

• Only 27.9% of businesses have PCI DSS certification. 
• Only 33 thousand of businesses have ISO 27001 certification. 

We pay a lot of attention to NDA agreements and other software solutions that help us prevent information leaks. Every newcomer signs an NDA on the first day of their onboarding. Additionally, we sign NDAs with the clients that require them. This way we ensure a cyber double-wall around our clients’ information.

So, why outsource and not ensure security for an in-house support team? Because it is easier. Security is not a state but a process. Behind every certification are permanent changes into the company structure. They require monitoring, maintenance, experience and effort. Businesses that only start building their customer support in time will have to dedicate whole teams to cybersecurity and its maintenance. 

Outsourcing with the right provider not only guarantees the security of your business and your customers but unloads resources for improving internal processes. 

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