Cloud Industry Forum joins Third Party Assurance initiative
-CIF partners with business assurance initiative to help organisations overcome third party security risks-
The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) today announced it has partnered with the Third Party Assurance Centre (TPAC), a business assurance initiative, formed to help minimise outsourcing risks. Other industry bodies partnering with TPAC include the Information Security Forum, Cloud Security Alliance, Common Assurance Maturity Model, and the Payment Card Industry board of advisers.
A recent whitepaper collectively produced by these industry bodies entitled, “Business Assurance for the 21st Century,” highlights that third parties managing data should be asked questions about the security systems they have in place and the standards they adhere to. TPAC aims to combat security risks faced by organisations that manage third-party suppliers by introducing transparency into the supply chain.
Raj Samani, founder of the Common Assurance Maturity Model (CAMM), and chief technology officer Europe, Middle East and Africa for security firm McAfee, commented: “Organisations should create contracts which outline the level of security that they expect from their third parties, whether data is being managed in the cloud or on-premise. This way, when organisations get tenders for business coming through, they are assured that third parties are transparent about risk levels. Transparency is heavily encouraged by CIF as are contracts. We are delighted they are coming on board with TPAC to advocate best practice across the wider IT sector.”
Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum commented: “CIF fully supports the initiative of providing a third party assurance framework to help establish trust online, and we see this as complementary to the CIF Code of Practice which was launched in 2010 to engender best practice within the Cloud Service Provider market by requiring Certification against the inter-dependent pillars of Transparency, Accountability and Capability. Both the CIF Code of Practice and the Third Party Assurance initiative have a common aim of providing end users with a frame of reference to make informed decisions in their use of online services. To that end we are keen to work alongside our industry peers to see if we can help make this a reality.”
A website will shortly be launched for the initiative under the following url: www.the-third-party-assurance-centre.com. For further information please email enquiries@third-party-assurance.com
About the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF)
The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) was established in direct response to the evolving supply models for the delivery of software and IT services that has expanded well beyond the traditional on-premise method to one that now embraces hosted and/or, pay-as-you-use Cloud solutions.
CIF’s purpose is twofold: To drive a common and public level of transparency about the capability, substance and best practices of online Service Providers (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Web hosting providers etc) through a process of self-certification to a Code of Practice. Second, this Code of Practice, and the use of the related Certification Mark on participant’s web sites, provides comfort and promotes trust to businesses and individuals wishing to leverage the commercial, financial and agile operations capabilities that the Cloud based and hosted solutions can offer. CIF is ensuring the integrity and governance of the self-certification process through regular random audits as well as investigating complaints from parties that challenge any specific participants self-certification status.
