Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report found that third-party involvement appeared in 48% of breaches, a 60% increase from the previous year. It also identified persistent gaps in access controls, including incomplete multifactor authentication, weak passwords, and permission misconfigurations.
In promo businesses, outsourced teams may work with customer and partner data, artwork, order details, pricing, invoices, account information, product data, and internal systems.
As that access becomes more closely connected to daily operations, security maturity becomes an important part of the outsourcing decision.
The finding should not discourage companies from working with external partners.
Outsourcing remains valuable because it gives businesses access to specialist skills, flexible capacity, and extended execution coverage. The lesson is that operational capability and security controls need to be evaluated together.
Before selecting a partner, suppliers and distributors should understand how access is granted and monitored, whether multifactor authentication is enforced, how permissions are reviewed and removed, how employees are trained to handle sensitive information, and what happens when a security incident occurs.
Certifications and independent assessments provide useful evidence, but they should be supported by clear answers about how security works in the actual engagement. Clients should know who can access their systems, what information those individuals can see, and how activity is governed.
As outsourced teams become more embedded in business workflows, mature security practices can make those relationships easier to trust and easier to expand. The competitive advantage comes from combining operational expertise with the controls required to protect the work entrusted to the partner.
