Though most are very familiar with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and its relation to third parties and remote access, we're going to break it down a bit. HIPAA carries with it data privacy requirements for individuals, organizations, and entities working with patient information.

With the continued rise of high profile data breaches caused by third parties, many organizations are becoming aware that in order to maintain the security of their network and systems, they need to create and implement a solution for specifically managing access for their vendors.

Companies continue to heavily rely on third-party vendors to manage mission-critical business functions. These applications may be cloud-based (SaaS) or deployed on-premises and they are often accessed remotely via different devices.

Way back in 2018, the Department of Defense (DOD) reported a data breach that affected at least 30,000 military and civilian personnel. Let's take a stroll down memory lane to look at what happened in this data breach: hackers gained access through a third-party contractor that maintained travel records for the department.

Companies of all sizes often turn to virtual private networks, or VPNs, for a critical layer of data security. These solutions are used to protect user-information that's transferred via internet connections from unauthorized access.

Data breaches caused by the remote access that vendors and external third parties have continues to be the easiest way hackers have into a network.

Data breaches that involve third parties, vendors, and contractors have continued to make headlines throughout the past 10 years. We continue to see headlines, see articles on social media, and we've all become numb to getting the letters in the mail about another data breach.

We're not going to be dropping new information when we say that security is important when allowing network access to external parties like vendors and contractors. Along the same lines, breaches coming from third-party access are increasing, as vendors often offer an easier way into your network than a full-frontal assault on your defenses.

At first, it may seem antithetical to consider deploying a vendor access management system in the cloud. After all, you are trying to provide access for third parties to internal systems, and whether it’s a VPN concentrator or a vendor privileged access management (VPAM) system, these devices typically sit inside or on your DMZ.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is talked about, and used, a lot in our day-to-day lives. A classic example of using MFA is a debit card. Not only do you need the physical card, but you also have to enter a personal identification number (PIN) to use it when checking out at a store, or when taking money out of the ATM.