Why Your Service Provider’s Breach Is Your Problem

Too many CFOs and CISOs still believe their service providers have security under control. They don’t.

Every time your data leaves your environment unprotected, you hand over your reputation, revenue, and regulatory standing to someone else’s perimeter. And when that provider gets breached, and they will, you’re the one regulators and shareholders hold responsible. The data owner stays in the firing line.

Executives often treat outsourcing as risk reduction. In reality, it multiplies exposure. Managed service providers protect their perimeter, not your data. They secure networks and endpoints, but the moment information moves between your systems and theirs, it’s exposed. That’s where attackers strike, exploiting gaps in data-in-transit protection to intercept, alter, or weaponize your information.

Outsourcing services doesn’t outsource liability.

Regulatory Accountability: You Own the Risk

When your provider fails, the fallout lands on your balance sheet.

DORA, GDPR, and NIS2 are unambiguous: data owners are accountable for protecting sensitive information, regardless of who processes it. If your provider mishandles your data, your organization faces the fine, which could be up to 4% of global revenue, and your leadership carries personal liability.

Financial and Insurance Fallout

Insurers are tightening exclusions for third-party breaches. If your provider is compromised and you can’t prove you protected your data in transit, don’t expect a payout. The financial exposure doesn’t stop at fines, it extends to legal action, shareholder scrutiny, and long-term erosion of market trust. 

If we’re not clear enough, then here’s your reminder: you can’t insure against responsibility.

Operational Disruption: When Your Provider’s Breach Becomes Your Crisis

A single provider breach can halt operations overnight. Customer deliveries stall, systems freeze, and recovery costs skyrocket. The breach may have originated with a vendor, but your business takes the hit.

Between your systems and theirs, data flows unprotected, exposed to interception and manipulation. Attackers know it. Regulators know it. Do you?

Data in Motion Is Still Unprotected

Most providers claim strong “security controls,” but these often stop at the edge of their network. Data moving between environments remains vulnerable. That’s the weak link, data in motion, unprotected, unmonitored, and fully exposed to interception. Because legacy security systems like network and endpoint protection only delay attackers. Data protection stops them from getting anything useful.

Certes DPRM: Continuous Protection Beyond the Provider’s Perimeter

Protection must travel with the data. Certes Data Protection & Risk Mitigation (DPRM) ensures data remains protected, authenticated, and compliant wherever it moves. Even if a service provider’s perimeter is breached, your data stays secure, preserving integrity and meeting regulatory demands.

Regulators don’t accept excuses, and neither do attackers. Your provider’s breach is your problem unless your data is protected independently of their controls.

Your Next Step: Eliminate Service Provider Risk

CFOs and CISOs should be asking two questions today:

1. How is our data protected when it leaves our network?
2. Can our providers prove compliance with data-in-transit protection standards?

If the answer to either is unclear, your exposure is real.

Watch our short video to see how Certes DPRM solves the service provider risk challenge, then book a demo to see how you can protect your data everywhere it moves.