While providing access for third-party, non-employees is critical to meeting business objectives, it oftentimes has the unintended consequence of exponentially increasing an organization’s attack surface. With the proper identity-proofing practices and capabilities in place, organizations can verify the identities of their users, support risk management initiatives and better protect critical assets – eliminating the third-party risk management blind spots.

Popular retailer Macy's has been hacked. The company provided notice of data breach in a letter to customers. 

Outsourcing by companies has been an area of growth for many years, and the trend does not seem to be slowing down. For example, Gartner is forecasting a 17 percent growth in public cloud use worldwide in 2019. Leading the way is infrastructure-as-a-service or (IaaS) with an expected 27 percent growth alone.

A company is never able to predict when or by what means it may be targeted in a cyberattack, but it can prepare a robust response plan in the event of a breach. That response – contingent on the team, corporate processes and the technology that supports them – will ultimately determine whether a company ends up on the front page of The New York Times next to Equifax with its clients’ information on the Dark Web.