Security of Cloud-Based Platforms for an HR Consulting Firm

The Customer

Being a top Indian HR consulting firm, our customer specializes in various domains including employee lifecycle management, payroll management, and income tax and finance. The company uses the Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) platform to make these services available to their customers. They were the first company in India to facilitate e-filings of Income Tax returns back in the year 2002; and they were instrumental in providing online, semi-online and offline services to companies and individuals for IT and finance related matters.

When the customer approached us at Outsource2india, they wanted us to offer security solutions that would:

• Align the company's IT policy with international guidelines for IT best practices
• Facilitate the detection issues in their nascent stages, before they come to the notice of others
• Guide their staff on incorporating simple IT security practices in their everyday activities within office

The Challenge

With a growing number of businesses tapping into the online space, numerous IT service providers who focus on cloud-based services have come up. These services are highly beneficial to corporate and other industries, as they enable employees to get access to efficient software systems to optimize their tasks, at affordable costs.

Our HR consulting customer has been a pioneer of sorts in this domain. They offer cloud-based solutions for many a critical tasks that demand a foolproof security in the network. Our client was wary of the security of their cloud, and was looking out for ways to enhance it. The customer knew that clouds are vulnerable to malicious attacks like malware, thereby resulting in data loss, injection, buffer overflow, denial of service and session hijacking. Therefore, the client wanted us to secure their system and implement state-of-the-art practices to ensure maximum security over the cloud.

The Methodology Used

To address the customer's security issues, the software team at Outsource2india adopted the following methodology:

• Formulating a robust requirements analysis by getting valuable inputs from the management about their major concerns
• Assessing the current IT security policy for loopholes and evaluating the main causes of problems in the cloud
• Building the Calendar of Activities after coordinating with the management at the client's office
• Implementing best policies towards ensuring security
• Identifying all the points for performing security tests
• Testing intensively to detect and remove any vulnerability from the system
• Moving on to advanced testing techniques on the vulnerable areas recognized in the previous step
• Creating a report on vulnerability, threat and mitigation steps

The Solution

We devised an Information Security Program and led the customer towards following the best practices in IT, that could ensure safety for them and their customers. As a first and a most essential step, we examined their system and blotted the areas where the cloud was the easiest to attack and intrude into. We performed a gamut of penetration tests based on the OWASP Top 10 criteria, to check the ease with which the cloud could be penetrated. This was later followed by the resolution on existing issues, after which, we repeated all our tests to remove any possible loopholes.

To successfully accomplish the project, we went the extra mile by assigning dedicated Information Security Officers to the customer. Our trained software professionals worked closely with the client and formulated a calendar of essential activities. The project came to a successful completion with our team implementing IT best practices that were in sync, not just with the client, but also with their the end customers.

The Results

By partnering with Outsource2india for security solutions, our customer was not only able to tighten the security of their cloud-based platforms, but they were also able to leverage other benefits, such as:

• Safeguarding of their data and IT assets
• Streamlining information security efforts by implementing a structured approach
• Better preparing the company for external and internal audits
• Ensuring alignment with legal, regulatory, contractual and statutory requirements

Do you want to address a similar problem? Does your cloud-based platform lack the much-needed security? We, at Outsource2india can assist you with our top-notch security solutions that are reliable, fast and affordable. Join our group of happy customers today.