Did You Know? 2019 is the Year of Carousel Security Excellence

As we look to appreciate and celebrate Data Privacy Day 2019, I’d like to first take a moment to recap the state of the industry in 2018. Overall, there was great progress, though at the same time there were an incredible amount of breaches, threats, and scandals that hit the news. From the introduction of GDPR to the millions of consumers affected by breaches and identity theft, 2018 was as interesting as it was eventful. It’s estimated that just in the first half of 2018, more than 4.5 billion records were compromised by unauthorized parties. These stats don’t even begin to cover the millions of records stolen by threat actors in the second half of the year, of which we are still waiting for official numbers to be released. 2019 is poised to exponentially outpace 2018.

Looking Ahead: Carousel’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence

2019 predictions point to more data breaches, cyber threats, exposures, and leaks. In anticipation, we at Carousel have doubled down on our commitment to our clients by taking a “Secure by Design” approach in all that we do—from our managed services philosophy to our deeply ingrained employee security mindset.

From a customer perspective, we aim to reduce the number of vendors in which they can possibly be exposed. Because we have technology across the IT stack, many of our clients use Carousel as the single IT services and solutions provider. Managing the risk of outside vendors is top of mind for every CEO, CISO, and CIO today. In a recent study by Ponemon Institute, the number of companies that suffered a data breach because of third party vendors increased from 49 percent in 2016 to 61 percent in 2018. Even worse, third-party data breaches over a 12-month period increased from 34 percent to 45 percent in 2018.  In essence, attackers are targeting partners and vendors to gain access to their targets. The moral of this story is that if the security and data management processes of your technology partner are not comprehensive, consistent and compliant, then neither are yours.

This is why Carousel’s diligent focus on secure operations and secure service delivery is of the utmost importance. Over the course of this year, you will see initiatives highlighting Carousel’s journey to operational maturity making us a true Security Center of Excellence and a model for our clients. Additionally, we are arming our teams with ongoing security education so that they are best equipped to serve as your partner in knowledge and consultation on pressing security trends and threats.

Leveraging our Center of Excellence philosophy, we will model the way, giving our customers the confidence that we are an organization that is cyber-resilient, responsible, and ultimately their trusted partner.

Security is a shared responsibility and we view all of our team members are as cyber warriors! I look forward to sharing more updates throughout the year as we continue to evolve our security strategy. Happy Data Privacy Day!