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Third Party Vendor Management

Staffcop provides third party vendor monitoring, threat detection and data loss prevention in a single platform.
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The Risk of Third-party Vendor Access

Third party vendors, partners, consultants and outsourced contractors are usually granted privileged access to a company’s internal systems through root or domain administration rights. Due to this access, they can easily change system configuration, steal company data as well as sabotage critical infrastructure. Even with no malicious intent, an external vendor is a major security risk. Industries such as banking and healthcare have strict regulatory requirements - where vendor monitoring is mandatory to ensure privacy and protection while data is transferred or processed between two parties.

These factors are reasons enough for organizations to set up a security perimeter when giving access to external vendors and contractors. And find a technique to continuously monitor all vendor activity to ensure they conform to the company’s security policy and rules.

Additionally, some compliance regulations require organizations to keep a detailed record of any security, privacy or data breach incidents caused by a third-party.

Staffcop Third Party Vendor Management: activity monitoring, threat detection and data loss prevention in a single platform

Staffcop provides an unrivaled platform to monitor, control and protect third party vendors to ensure access is only granted to systems needed, decrease the chances of accidental mistakes that can damage system settings, and help improve IT safety measures. These capabilities are made possible by the software's unique features like user activity monitoring, privileged user management, advanced authentication and access control, remote user monitoring and support for virtualization services.

What’s more, Staffcop helps you meet many regulatory compliance requirements bordering on third party vendor management with its extensive user activity monitoring, data exfiltration protection, audit, reporting and forensics capabilities.
Real-Time Activity Monitoring
Staffcop let’s you monitor all user activity encompassing 22+ system objects like: web pages, apps, email, file transfers, instant messaging, social media and more.
Authentication and Access Control
With Staffcop’s identity based authentication and segregated access control, you can prevent unauthorized access and sharing of sensitive systems and data by a third-party.
Intelligent Policy and Rules Engine
Create monitoring profiles for individual users, groups or departments, and set up custom behavior rules to limit the use of unproductive applications and websites or send automated notices to alert you about excessive idle time and other anomalies with Staffcop.
Audit and Forensics
Staffcop's audit and forensic functionality allow for video recording of employee activity, session recording, immutable logs, alerts, and much more. Combined, they offer a wide collection of investigation data to identify the source and insider threat with pinpoint accuracy.
Vendor Risk Management
Identify high risk vendors, policies and system components on a dedicated risk dashboard. Sophisticated risk scoring helps identify and focus on areas of vulnerabilities.
Productivity & SLA
Staffcop has built-in productivity tools that allows administrators to establish a continuous feedback loop with your vendor network. You can also refine and adjust your organizational workflow by monitoring contract schedules, projects, budget and engagement rate to improve vendor SLA and QA.
Compliance Management
Companies can also leverage Staffcop to develop activity and schedule-based rules to support several common compliance requirements like implementing audit trails (GDPR), limiting unauthorized login (ISO 27001), prevent unencrypted file transfers (PCI DSS), reporting, etc.

Third Party Vendors: A Weak URL in
Cyber Security Chain

  • 3rd-party incidents – a harsh reality for many companies
    In a 2016 global survey of 170 companies, Deloitte researchers discovered that 87% had experienced an incident with a 3rd-party.

    87% Suffered a Disturbing 3rd-Party Incident
  • 3rd-party vendors have access to crucial systems and sensitive data
    According to a SOHA study, 75% of organizations agree that third-parties have access to many VPNs, networks, and platforms.

    75% Confirm Third-Parties Have Access to Critical Systems
  • Organizations spend millions on 3rd-party breaches
    Organizations spend an estimated $10+ million responding to 3rd-party breaches annually, says Riskonnect.

    Est. $10M+ Spent on 3rd-Party Breaches by Organizations.
  • A majority of companies lack 3rd-party security standards
    A global survey of companies conducted by PwC found that only 52% have security standards in place for 3rd-parties.

    Only 52% of Organizations Consider 3rd-Party Security Top Priority.

How Third Party Vendors Cause
Security Risks

Steganography

Leveraging screen-capturing software to share confidential documents and security information with unauthorized sources outside the organization.
This occurs when a vendor attempts to bypass security clearances and gain additional access by exploiting a bug, design flaw or configuration oversight in an operating system or software application.

Privilege elevation

Attempting to log in to database servers during off-hours or after the completion of a project can also pose a threat.

Install Agents

Malware infection

Third-parties that open infected email or visit a website with malware expose the organization's systems to cyberattacks.

Cloud security

Any access to cloud-based storage services, which can lead to confidential information being exported from the system is a cloud security threat.

Data exfiltration

A vendor can abuse access within a system to view confidential customer and employee records.

Third Party Vendor Management
Use Cases

IT Services: The risk of third-party vendor access

IT services businesses, MSPs and hosting providers need to monitor vendor activity in the company servers to implement SLA and process billing. Also, since employees of third party professional services can access organizational databases, configure servers and often set up IT security systems, they should be treated with the same vigor as other privileged employees and scrutinized for all their activity.

  • Solution

    Fortunately for IT services companies Staffcop offers an activity monitoring solution, that allows administrators to quickly view (and prove) exactly who worked on the servers, when, for how long and what they did to ensure security and process accurate billing and SLAs.

    What's more, Staffcop supports ISO 27001 compliance that further ensures an organization’s overall IT security strategies are covered with a single solution.

Financial Services: Industry challenge

Today, many financial institutions including banks outsource operational functions to contractors or use third parties to offer value added services. In fact a rapidly increasing number of banks are outsourcing core banking operations (i.e. accessing demand deposit accounts through bank cards) to third party service providers. The implications of this: a new avenue of threats for both the banks and their customers. Over the years, regulations and laws have been introduced to ensure banks hold their vendors accountable for their activities. For instance, Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) recently released the Cybersecurity Assessment Tool that states, “Financial institutions must understand the complex nature of arrangements with outside parties and ensure adequate due diligence for the engagement of the relationships and ongoing monitoring.”

  • Staffcop solution

    To address these challenges, Staffcop provides an activity monitoring tool that allows for instant visibility (and proof) into activities conducted on the servers such as who worked on the systems, when, for how long and what they did.
    Staffcop enables banks and financial institutions to discover potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities in their online banking system and develop threat intelligence with behavioral and content-based analysis of secure financial data. With continuous monitoring, a bank can prevent harmful practices by its vendors and if necessary, conduct detailed file search to ensure vendors are using the right forms, following the agreement and addressing customer requests in a prompt and responsive manner.

Retail / E-Commerce: Industry challenge

Retail and e-commerce merchants and any business processing payment information must comply with PCI DSS, which involves stringent information security requirements for the merchants and their vendors while processing credit card transactions or dealing with customer data. For instance, as a merchant you must ensure that third party service providers (TPSPs)/vendors you conduct business with are also following the compliance protocol. You should be able to list each vendor your company does business with, confirm what services they offer, and make sure that each provider listed is compliant with the PCI DSS on an ongoing basis.

  • Staffcop solution

    The simplest approach to ensure PCI DSS compliance and proper auditing is to integrate third party vendors into your existing monitoring and auditing system. That way, you both have a common, transparent, end-to-end auditing system.

Health and Medicine: Industry challenge

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is designed to ensure the efficient flow of the healthcare data and protect patient’s Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Personal Health Information (PHI) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) from fraud, theft or misuse. Healthcare organizations covered by HIPAA must protect these data not only from their employees but ensure any contractors or Business Associates (BAs) have systems in place to comply with the regulation. There are even certain Administrative, Security and Technical Rules for such addressable implementation specifications.

  • Staffcop solution

    StaffCop enables healthcare institutions to comply with ongoing privacy and security requirements of HIPAA regulated PII, PHI and EHR data from both internal and external users. It can be used to create security profiles for vendors allowing or restricting access to patient records on a need to know basis. And it offers granular activity monitoring of all system objects like files, networks, websites, apps, emails etc., thereby helping organizations enforce privacy policy. Further, organizations can leverage Staffcop's instant alerts and audit trail to meet the HIPAA security review and reporting requirements.

Telecom: Industry challenge

Undoubtedly, telecommunications is a crucial sector in today’s world. Like utilities and other critical industries, it impacts everyone: individuals, businesses and governments alike. This is why telecom operators and ISPs are common targets of cybercriminals or malicious actors. Unfortunately, these criminals are becoming more desperate. According to a telecom threat intelligence report by Kaspersky, cybercriminals are enlisting insiders including contractors and vendors to gain access to telecommunications networks and subscriber data. They blackmail the targeted insiders forcing them to give up credentials or distribute spear-phishing attacks on the criminal’s behalf.

  • Staffcop solution

    With Staffcop’s privileged user monitoring and intelligent behavioral analysis, telecom providers can easily identify compromised vendors who show abnormal signs, like attempting to change system component or to bypass security clearances and gain additional access. Telecom providers can also take advantage of Staffcop’s granular activity monitoring and data loss prevention solution, built for high-grade security standards like NERC-CIP, NIST-FISMA, ISO 27001 and critical systems.

GDPR / Privacy Data Protection: Industry challenge

Since May 2018, any organization handling EU citizens’ personal data was mandated to comply with the GDPR law. These organizations also known as Controllers must ensure that its Processors are compliant as well. A Processor is an entity that adheres to the instructions from the data controller to collect/process the personal data (PII), in other words a third party vendor. Thus, any controlling organization using a third party vendor to process EU citizens’ personal data, will be responsible for their GDPR compliance.

  • Staffcop solution

    For a GDPR Controller to enforce the right accountability procedures for its Processor(s), the following must be in place: third-party vendor management, access control and contractual oversight. Staffcop is designed to ensure that your third party is processing privacy data only in the context it is required to be processed.

    And it can be configured with restricted feature sets to allow for further privacy of EU customers. Leverage Staffcop’s extensive reporting and forensic capability to fulfill GDPR’s record keeping and breach reporting requirements.

Authentication and Access Control

With Staffcop’s identity based authentication and segregated access control features you can prevent unauthorized access or sharing of confidential data outside your organization. The software allows you to create an access account for each vendor that will need authorized clearance and easily monitor what each vendor is doing at any given time. You can also set up profiles for regular, privileged and contract/external users and determine what information and system resources each profile can access.

Authentication and Access Control

With Staffcop’s identity based authentication and segregated access control features you can prevent unauthorized access or sharing of confidential data outside your organization. The software allows you to create an access account for each vendor that will need authorized clearance and easily monitor what each vendor is doing at any given time. You can also set up profiles for regular, privileged and contract/external users and determine what information and system resources each profile can access.

Session Recording and Playback

Staffcop’s live view and history features offer seamless real-time streaming of third party vendor activity through the dashboard and extensive visual history of all actions taken for both on-site and remote vendors. You can search all actions via metadata, regular expression and natural language. And tag recordings by time and date highlighting any alerts and notification.

Reduce Administrative Overhead

Staffcop has a dedicated Risk dashboard where the supervisor can carry out organization-wide risk evaluation. Risk can be profiled by vendors, system objects accessed by the vendor or departments responsible for the vendor. While reports can be derived by severity of risks or by how many times security violations occur. Organizations can use the software's unique Risk Scores to identify high-risk vendors or policies so that techniques can be developed to address the risks.

Reduce Administrative Overhead

Staffcop has a dedicated Risk dashboard where the supervisor can carry out organization-wide risk evaluation. Risk can be profiled by vendors, system objects accessed by the vendor or departments responsible for the vendor. While reports can be derived by severity of risks or by how many times security violations occur. Organizations can use the software's unique Risk Scores to identify high-risk vendors or policies so that techniques can be developed to address the risks.

Enterprise-Wide Monitoring and Tracking

To ensure organization-wide monitoring, Staffcop allows you to create specific monitoring profiles for your vendors, define what actions and system resources the vendor will be monitored for, when and how and set a schedule for when vendors can log into systems and from which locations. You can also control their access within certain applications, networks, and websites or by time slots.

Document Tracking

The document tracking functionality enables companies to monitor the interactions between third-party vendors and your data including reports on: who accesses data, when the data is accessed, any changes, abnormal activity or any attempts made to alter the data. What’s more, this feature can be configured to fit your policies and used in tracking documents transferred to emails as an attachment, USB, Dropbox, Google Drive, documents printed etc.

Document Tracking

The document tracking functionality enables companies to monitor the interactions between third-party vendors and your data including reports on: who accesses data, when the data is accessed, any changes, abnormal activity or any attempts made to alter the data. What’s more, this feature can be configured to fit your policies and used in tracking documents transferred to emails as an attachment, USB, Dropbox, Google Drive, documents printed etc.

Remote Desktop Control

Thanks to Staffcop remote contractors and vendors can now enjoy the simplicity of tracking their project and time with the click of a mouse. Once the Staffcop agent is activated, all actions and data are recorded. The software also allows you to take control of an external vendor's desktop and access at the first sign of malicious activity to eliminate threats of all kinds.

Powerful Policy and Rules Editor

With Staffcop’s remote control feature, a user's ability to access a desktop can be instantly taken away. By manually overriding an account, you can remove the user from the equation, ensuring that activity is contained, and potential threats are eliminated. To activate the remote control function simply click on the remote icon on all live sessions. Override all manual inputs by a user to prevent sensitive data from being compromised and data breach incidents from occurring.

Powerful Policy and Rules Editor

With Staffcop’s remote control feature, a user's ability to access a desktop can be instantly taken away. By manually overriding an account, you can remove the user from the equation, ensuring that activity is contained, and potential threats are eliminated. To activate the remote control function simply click on the remote icon on all live sessions. Override all manual inputs by a user to prevent sensitive data from being compromised and data breach incidents from occurring.

Integrated Threat Management

Part of Staffcop’s integrated threat management strategy is providing in-depth activity reports that contain information on which vendors are accessing systems and network resources. And sending real-time alerts for high-risk vendor behavior to administrators. Make your findings and observations tasks easier by identifying where sensitive data is stored, who accessed it and how with session logs, anomaly and risk analysis and incident reports. Finally, incident triggers and logs from Staffcop can be sent to SIEM and other analytics tools for a holistic threat management system.

Ensure Quality of Service

Integrated productivity tools allows you to establish a continuous feedback loop with your vendor network. Refine and fine tune your organizational workflow through monitoring contract schedules, projects, budget and engagement rate to improve vendor SLA. If your vendors handle customer care services, you can track their performance and quality and if necessary, conduct detailed investigation to make sure vendors are using the right forms, following the agreement and addressing customer requests in a prompt and responsive manner.

Ensure Quality of Service

Integrated productivity tools allows you to establish a continuous feedback loop with your vendor network. Refine and fine tune your organizational workflow through monitoring contract schedules, projects, budget and engagement rate to improve vendor SLA. If your vendors handle customer care services, you can track their performance and quality and if necessary, conduct detailed investigation to make sure vendors are using the right forms, following the agreement and addressing customer requests in a prompt and responsive manner.

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Employee Monitoring

Remote Administration

Employee Monitoring and Productivity Tracking

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Flexible & Secure Deployment Options

  • Bare Metal
    Install Staffcop directly on dedicated hardware for maximum performance and security. Ideal for organizations that prefer on-premise control and full isolation from external environments.
  • Private Cloud
    Deploy Staffcop in your secure, scalable private cloud environment. Achieve enterprise-grade scalability and compliance with flexible cloud integration.
  • Virtual Machine
    Run Staffcop on any OS in a virtualized environment (VMware, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, etc.). Ensure easy administration, portability, and resource efficiency without affecting the host system.
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Flexible Licensing That Fits Every Business