How does the ISO 27001 data security certification enhance relocation services?

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Packimpex is one of the first relocation companies to get this important certification

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about the need to rethink business models in all industries and especially in relocation. Throughout the last year, all relocation companies have not only been severely affected by reduced numbers of international assignments due to travel restrictions across most countries, but have also had to tackle a significantly increased number of cyber-threats.

As Packimpex has adapted its working model to include more remote work during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, customers, partners, and employees can rest assured that their personal and financial information remains secure thanks to our brand new ISO 27001 certification. Packimpex is amongst the first European relocation companies to receive this certification.

Since risks associated with cyber-attacks and data breaches continue to increase, protecting information has never been more important. Achieving this accreditation was a key focus for Packimpex, as the certificate underlines our commitment to treat our clients’ data in a secure and confidential manner.

Why do you need to work with a relocation company that is ISO 27001-certified?

At Packimpex, we offer more than relocation services. What we’re actually offering is peace of mind. Besides taking care of your employees during the relocation process, we also make sure that your and your employees’ data is always safe with us.

The COVID-19 crisis also brought about a cyber pandemic. Cyber attacks grew in frequency and strength, with more than 4,000 attacks per day carried out since the pandemic started. Data breaches were made easier by the remote working trend and cyber attackers grew more powerful.

You might remember the Zoom data breach that made headlines for months. This is perhaps the most famous of the attacks from 2020 and 2021, but there have been so many others.

All the statistics say the same: the number of cyber-attacks has grown exponentially and so has their success. Faced with this, we wanted to act and mitigate risks rather than tackle their effects. Thus, Packimpex became one of the first companies in the global mobility industry to obtain the ISO 27001 certification.

ISO 27001 provides the methodology for companies of all sizes to discover which types of attacks they are most vulnerable to and a framework to mitigate these risks. This certification offers more than risk discovery. It also offers a roadmap to define procedures for how to change employee and stakeholder behaviour in order to prevent cyber incidents from happening.

Top benefits of working with an ISO 27001-certified relocation company

When you work with Packimpex, you can rest assured that:

• Your information is protected and will not get into unauthorized hands. This includes all the information that you shared with us throughout our business relationship.
• We enforce rules and best practices to ensure that all the information you share with us is kept accurate and that it can only be edited or modified by authorized users. This way, you are always in control of the data you share with us.
• We are constantly evaluating the risks of a breach and are taking action to mitigate the risk of such an attack happening. Things move incredibly fast in cyber security and attacks grow more sophisticated every day. This is why it’s important to work with a company that has an active approach to security and risk mitigation.
• The Packimpex information security policy has been independently assessed and is constantly being held to international standards and industry best practices.

Briefly put, the ISO 27001 certification proves that our company has identified the risks, assessed their implications, and created processes and system controls designed to limit any damage in case of a successful attack.

This means that our customers’ data is always kept safe. You can rest assured that the way we use, store, and share your data is closely monitored by independent regulatory bodies. In other words: your information couldn’t be in better hands.

Would you like to know more about ISO 27001 and the certification process? We’ve explained the theory behind, so read on!

What is the ISO 27001 certification?

ISO 27001 (by its full name: ISO/IEC 27001 — Information technology — Security techniques — Information security management systems — Requirements) is the leading international standard focusing on information security. It is part of a set of standards developed to handle information security: the ISO/IEC 27000 series.

ISO 27001 was published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in partnership with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), international organizations whose main purpose is to develop similar standards.

The standard was developed to help organizations of various sizes and in various fields of activity protect their data in a systematic way and with cost-efficient means.

ISO 27001 is often associated with companies in the IT and tech fields and it is wrongly assumed that they are the only ones that need to implement it. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The myth stems from the fact that it is, indeed IT companies that typically work with large volumes of data or with sensitive data (as it happens, for instance, in the fintech industry). However, any company that works with customer data can benefit from implementing this standard.

Why?

Because, most often, it’s not the IT department or an IT company that acts as the key element in protecting sensitive data. Insider attacks are becoming more and more prevalent across countries and across industries. Firewalls, backups, or antiviruses can do very little to protect against them. This is where ISO 27001 comes in.

The ISO 27001 certification process

We don’t want to get too technical. We just want to paint a clear picture of how the ISO 27001 certification works to protect both Packimpex and all our customers and partners.

These are a few of the stages any organization has to go through to obtain the certification:

• Assessing the potential risks to our business. This meant a thorough evaluation of all our systems and processes.
• Identifying the areas that are most vulnerable. These were prioritized for risk management and attack prevention.
• Implementing an organization-wide management system that helps control where and how information is used and stored. This is a very important phase since it allows us to get a bird’s-eye-view over all the data that flows within the company and outside of it.
• Creating and maintaining processes that manage our current and future information/data security policy.
• Training for employees and third-party contractors. The training was designed to make everyone aware of potential risks and involve them in incident spotting and reporting.
• Close monitoring of system activities and logging of user activities to spot potential gaps in our security.
• Regular updates of all our IT systems to ensure that protection software is kept up-to-date.
• Various access control system evaluations and more.

The ISO 27001 certification process may seem time- and resource-consuming, but we strongly believe that it was necessary to ensure your data’s security.

The Packimpex ongoing commitment to your safety

As the cybersecurity landscape changes, we are committed to taking all the necessary steps to protect all your data, according to international standards for best practices and regulations. Our ISO 27001 certification entails an ongoing proactive approach to data security and privacy policy.

If you want to learn more about how the steps we take to keep your information safe and secure, get in touch! We’d love to answer all your questions.