Outsourcing companies that provide low-cost computer services are emerging as “the weakest link” in the battle against cybercrime, according to senior corporate security officials.
The long-term trend of companies hiring subcontractors to reduce costs has accelerated with the growth of cloud computing services. They have helped widen the range of IT jobs that can be outsourced but created new opportunities for hackers.
Orrie Dinstein, chief privacy leader at General Electric’s GE Capital arm, said some service providers had sloppy security practices for handling sensitive data and lacked the same controls as their big corporate clients.