Why Paper Processes Should Scare You

Six weeks offshore. Hundreds of checklists, thousands of photos, and one 5th-gen drillship sweating under the scrutiny of a ready-to-drill survey. The Black Sea was next, but first, the data needed to land safely. I’d done my part. Excel sheets sorted, report finalised, evidence stacked in neatly named folders on my laptop like a digital Jenga tower.

On the transit bus to the airport, I gave the files one last look. Checked everything. All there. Six weeks of fatigue tucked into a backpack. And then… lounge. Beer. Relief.

One hour later: where’s the laptop?

Gone. Along with the 5GB of proof, pain and pixelated pressure. No cloud backup. No shared workspace. Just a very empty chair in the lounge and a boss 10,000km away who’s about to learn what not using digital inspection tools really costs.

The truth is, we still treat inspection data like it’s 1997: local, fragile, and catastrophically dependent on “the laptop”. But digital inspection systems store everything centrally, automatically, and securely, so losing a laptop in this context would be merely an annoyance. Losing your job because your inspection data lives and dies with your carry-on is entirely avoidable.

Paper’s not the enemy. But working like it’s still king? That’s a risk no customer wants to pay for. Especially not in oil and gas, where downtime has a daily cost with more zeroes than most would care to remember.

The moral of the story? If your inspection data isn’t in the cloud, you’re one misstep away from becoming a cautionary tale.

Why Paper and Lost Devices Are Not Enough

Paper and local devices still dominate many field operations, but both present significant weaknesses. Paper is insecure, lacks audit trails, and can be easily misplaced or even deliberately altered. In regulated industries, this lack of traceability exposes organisations to compliance breaches and litigation risk. Similarly, laptops and portable drives, though more convenient, carry risks of loss, theft, or corruption. A single unencrypted device can expose sensitive asset data, inspection photos, and even confidential client reports to competitors or malicious actors.

In high-stakes industries like oil and gas, the consequences are severe. One stolen laptop can translate to millions in downtime, rework, and lost trust. Moreover, relying on individuals to manually safeguard and transfer inspection data creates bottlenecks and human error.

The lesson: inspection data should be resilient, backed up in multiple secure locations, and accessible from centralised systems with strong authentication. Security must be designed into inspection management systems from the ground up, enabling audit trails, encryption, and role-based access to minimise both operational and reputational risk.

International Standards and Certifications

International standards such as ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and SOC 2 are the benchmark for information security management. For clients, certification is assurance that a vendor has structured policies and controls in place, offering confidence that minimum global standards are being met. But certification alone is often a snapshot in time. What really provides depth is the Statement of Applicability (SoA). This is a comprehensive document that not only lists every ISO control but also explains how the vendor has applied, excluded, or adapted each one.

The SoA demonstrates how a vendor applies ISO controls in practice, showing the gap between theory and lived reality. It is essentially a tailored map of which controls are implemented, which are not applicable, and why. For clients, this transparency provides insight into the maturity of a vendor’s security posture and helps assess whether their practices align with contractual or regulatory obligations.

Customers should also expect a set of security policies. Typical examples include:

• Access Control Policy – defines how accounts, identities, and roles are created, maintained, and revoked. A clear access control policy reduces the risk of insider threats, prevents privilege creep, and ensures accountability by tying every action back to an individual user.
• Supplier Relationship Policy – sets expectations for third-party vendors and subcontractors, requiring them to meet agreed security standards. This protects the organisation from weak links in the supply chain and ensures that outsourced services do not become an avenue for compromise.
• Data Classification and Confidential Information Policy – establishes how data should be categorised (e.g., public, internal, confidential, restricted) and handled accordingly. Proper classification prevents accidental exposure and ensures sensitive inspection records and client data are safeguarded with the right level of control.
• Cryptographic Controls Policy – outlines encryption requirements for data in transit and at rest, covering algorithms, key management, and usage. Strong cryptographic practices ensure that even if data is intercepted or stolen, it remains unreadable to unauthorised parties.
• Event Logging and Security Testing – mandates continuous monitoring of systems and regular testing, such as vulnerability assessments or penetration tests. This provides an audit trail for accountability and enables proactive detection and remediation of threats before they escalate into incidents.

The combination of certification and well-implemented policies is the mark of a mature SaaS vendor.

Information Security Audits: “Trust but Verify”

Certifications and policies are one thing, but clients also want confidence that vendors do what they claim. This is where auditing matters: it provides measurable proof that security is being actively maintained rather than simply documented.

Internal audits are routine checks designed to validate policies in practice. These can include vulnerability assessments, supplier evaluations, disaster recovery drills, and reviews of access control registers. For information security, they ensure that access rights are not abused, backups work as intended, and known vulnerabilities are patched. For operations management, they reveal inefficiencies, highlight resource gaps, and confirm whether procedures such as incident response or continuity plans are ready to be activated under stress. Internal audits, when done well, prevent costly surprises and keep the vendor’s systems resilient.

External audits add independent validation and credibility. Annual ISO surveillance audits, tri-annual recertifications, and AWS Foundational Technical Reviews (FTR) act as impartial checkpoints, verifying that claims made by the vendor align with reality. From an information security perspective, they provide assurance that industry best practices are consistently applied and not just self-reported. From an operational perspective, external audits give clients confidence that the SaaS vendor is continually improving, adapting to new threats, and investing in compliance. This level of external scrutiny can also influence client procurement decisions, as vendors with a strong audit record are seen as lower-risk partners.

Securing the Infrastructure

A SaaS vendor’s infrastructure forms the backbone of its security posture. It determines how well a platform can defend against modern cyber threats and how consistently it can deliver reliable service. Strong infrastructure security not only protects sensitive client data but also safeguards uptime, availability, and business continuity.

• Encryption at rest and in transit ensures that even if intercepted, data is unreadable. This is critical for industries handling sensitive intellectual property or regulated data, where a single breach can cause financial penalties and reputational damage. Encryption also demonstrates compliance with frameworks such as GDPR, reducing legal risk.
• Event logging and monitoring provide real-time detection of suspicious behaviour. By capturing detailed system activity, vendors can identify insider threats, attempted intrusions, or system anomalies before they escalate. Operationally, logging allows forensic analysis after an incident and ensures accountability across teams.
• Audit trails preserve accountability for actions. These records are indispensable during investigations, compliance audits, or when tracing errors back to root causes. For operations management, audit trails offer transparency across change management, making it easier to detect unauthorised modifications.
• Security testing, such as vulnerability scanning and penetration testing, verifies defences against real-world attacks. This continuous testing cycle identifies weaknesses early, reducing the likelihood of disruptions. Operationally, it ensures systems remain resilient under evolving threat conditions.

Additionally, cloud environments should undergo well-architected reviews to confirm resilience, redundancy, and compliance with global standards. These reviews evaluate whether systems are optimised for security, performance, and recovery, ensuring that operations can continue even under heavy load or after unexpected disruptions.

Managing Access Control

Access is often the weakest link in security. Shared or generic accounts present a material information security risk. They remove accountability and make insider threats untraceable. For example, a disgruntled user could access, corrupt, or delete data with no way to attribute actions to individuals. ISO 27001:2022 mandates multiple controls to manage individual accountability and auditability. Shared accounts undermine this principle, and most enterprise cyber teams will flag them as a serious concern.

On the practical side, generic accounts often cause more disruption than they solve. Passwords can be reset by any user, inadvertently locking others out, and then must be re-shared securely, often via insecure channels such as email or messaging apps. This not only increases operational friction but also introduces unnecessary security gaps. In addition, with shared accounts, there is no way to verify which individual completed inspections or system updates, creating challenges for audit, traceability, and data confidence.

Importantly, even the strongest protections offered by a SaaS vendor are largely bypassed once clients rely on generic accounts, since auditability and individual accountability are immediately lost.

Best practices include:

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): permissions based on job roles. RBAC ensures that employees have access only to the systems and data necessary for their role. This principle of least privilege reduces exposure to sensitive data and prevents errors that occur when users are over-provisioned.
• Password Management: enforced complexity, rotation, and secure vaulting. Weak or reused passwords are still one of the top causes of breaches. Strong password policies combined with centralised vaulting tools protect against brute-force attacks and reduce reliance on insecure personal practices.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): an additional layer of assurance. MFA combines something the user knows (password), something they have (token or phone), or something they are (biometric) to prevent account takeover. Even if a password is compromised, MFA significantly reduces the likelihood of unauthorised access.

The guiding principle is simple: always know who did what, when. For information security, this ensures clear auditability and accountability. For operations management, it provides confidence that workflows are carried out by authorised staff, enabling safe collaboration across distributed teams.

Incident Response and Legal Obligations

Incidents are inevitable. What matters is how quickly and effectively they are managed, and whether the vendor can contain the damage while maintaining business continuity. A delayed or poorly executed response can magnify financial losses, erode client trust, and expose the organisation to regulatory penalties.

A strong incident response plan should go beyond checklists and include:

• Clear roles and responsibilities. Everyone involved, from IT and legal to communications, must know their exact duties in a crisis. This avoids confusion and ensures coordinated action under pressure.
• Procedures for containment, eradication, and recovery. Vendors must be able to isolate compromised systems, remove malicious actors, and restore services quickly. The faster recovery is achieved, the less impact on operational uptime.
• Evidence collection and communication protocols. Properly gathering logs, alerts, and forensic data ensures incidents can be investigated and lessons learned. Transparent communication, both internally with teams and externally with clients and regulators, builds credibility and demonstrates accountability.

Vendors must also comply with legal requirements. GDPR, for example, requires notification within 72 hours of a personal data breach. The Australian Privacy Act and sector-specific rules impose additional obligations, and failure to meet them can result in fines or loss of operating licenses. For global clients, this means that the SaaS vendor must not only know the laws in their own jurisdiction but also manage obligations across multiple regions.

Clients should verify that their SaaS providers maintain a compliance register, regularly updated with laws and reporting obligations. This register reflects a vendor’s awareness of evolving regulations and their commitment to staying aligned with industry and legal expectations.

Threat Intelligence

The 2022 revision of ISO 27001 introduced explicit requirements for threat intelligence. This recognises that proactive defence is as important as reactive measures, shifting the focus from reacting to incidents to anticipating them before they cause harm.

Mature SaaS vendors, therefore, invest in structured threat intelligence programs. These include subscribing to government advisories (e.g., ACSC), participating in industry forums, monitoring darknet sources, and analysing global intelligence feeds. Threat data is correlated with internal logs and vulnerability scans to identify whether emerging exploits may target their infrastructure. This intelligence-driven approach not only strengthens response readiness but also enables preventive action, such as patching systems or updating firewall rules before attackers strike.

The impact for clients is substantial: reduced downtime, faster patching cycles, and more resilient operations. From an information security perspective, it means that emerging attack vectors are caught early and addressed decisively. From an operational management standpoint, proactive intelligence allows vendors to safeguard service availability and ensure business continuity even as the threat landscape evolves rapidly.

Change Management & Secure Development

Change is inevitable, but unmanaged change is dangerous. SaaS vendors should maintain structured processes for system and feature updates to avoid creating instability, vulnerabilities, or compliance issues. Without formal oversight, small code adjustments or rushed patches can cascade into service outages or security breaches.

A strong Change Management Procedure ensures changes are planned, communicated, tested, and rolled back if necessary. This procedure should cover everything from routine updates to urgent hotfixes, with clear approval workflows and rollback strategies in place. For information security, this means critical systems are not exposed to unverified code; for operations management, it means new functionality does not disrupt service delivery or introduce downtime. This includes crisis changes, where speed must not compromise security, ensuring that even under pressure, the organisation maintains consistency and control.

Development practices should follow a secure software development life cycle (SDLC), incorporating peer reviews, automated testing, and vulnerability scanning. Secure coding standards and mandatory reviews reduce the risk of exploitable flaws entering production. Regression tests confirm that new features do not break existing functionality, while vulnerability scanning ensures the platform is not exposed to known threats. For enterprise projects, professional services should apply the same discipline to client-specific configurations, ensuring that custom deployments are subject to the same rigorous testing and governance as the vendor’s core platform. This dual focus strengthens trust in both the software itself and in the professional services that extend it.

AI Guardrails & Data Leakage

As AI tools become integrated into workflows, new risks arise. Data leakage, whether intentional or accidental, is a major concern that can undermine trust, compromise intellectual property, and expose organisations to regulatory penalties. The use of generative AI introduces a unique challenge: employees may unknowingly share sensitive operational data with third-party systems, where it can be stored, analysed, or even used to train external models.

Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) measures must therefore be multi-layered and proactive:

• Network monitoring (e.g., AWS GuardDuty). Constant monitoring of network traffic can detect unusual data flows or suspicious connections that may indicate attempts to exfiltrate information.
• Workspace restrictions on sensitive data sharing. SaaS vendors should enforce strict controls over collaboration tools and storage locations to ensure confidential data cannot be uploaded or shared outside secure environments.
• Staff training on the risks of feeding confidential data into AI tools. Human error remains the biggest risk. Educating employees about the consequences of inputting sensitive project details, inspection reports, or client information into public AI systems reduces accidental leaks.
• Policy-driven data classification and DLP tooling. Tagging and classifying sensitive data ensures that security controls, such as blocking transfers or applying encryption, are automatically applied when needed.

The goal is to ensure that sensitive information never leaves the controlled environment of the SaaS platform. For information security, this means preserving confidentiality and regulatory compliance. For operations management, it protects the continuity of projects and prevents data loss events that could stall inspections, delay reporting, or damage client relationships.

Why Vendor Expertise Matters

There’s a difference between software vendors and engineering companies dabbling in software. The former build secure, scalable SaaS platforms as their core business; the latter often treat security as an afterthought, focusing on short-term delivery rather than sustainable, secure operations.

When vendor expertise is lacking, the operational impacts can be significant. Poorly designed software can introduce vulnerabilities, delay inspection cycles, or even cause system outages at critical moments. Without mature development and security practices, updates may break functionality, leading to downtime that disrupts maintenance schedules and increases operational risk. In industries where time is money, even a few hours of unplanned downtime can translate into millions in lost productivity.

Clients should therefore seek vendors with a proven track record in SaaS delivery, demonstrated through certifications, client references, and a history of platform evolution. Vendor expertise is not a luxury; it’s a safeguard against costly security missteps and operational disruptions.

Due Diligence: What Customers Should Do

Buyers are increasingly expected to demonstrate accountability in their vendor relationships, especially when it comes to information security. This isn’t about mistrust, it’s about operational resilience. A thoughtful evaluation of a SaaS partner’s security posture can reveal not only risk exposure but also the maturity of their engineering and governance practices.

Key areas that you might consider when looking at solutions can include:

• Alignment with security frameworks such as ISO/IEC 27001.
• Transparency around third-party auditing and certifications.
• Security readiness of their cloud infrastructure and cloud partners
• How their terms might cover aspects such as incident response.
• Controls provided for user access, encryption and many other aspects.

SaaS vendors understand that scrutiny is part of the process. In fact, those who are confident in their controls will often welcome it; it’s a signal that both parties take security seriously, paving the way for a partnership built on trust and accountability.

Conclusion & Call-to-Action

SaaS vendor security is not negotiable. It protects compliance, reputation, and ROI, but it also underpins operational reliability. A vendor’s security posture affects everything from uptime to client trust, and weak practices can quickly turn into system outages, compliance violations, or stalled projects. As AI adoption accelerates and regulations tighten, the bar for security will only rise, making it an essential component of sustainable operations, not just a compliance checkbox.

Now is the time to review your SaaS providers. Ask the hard questions: How do they handle incident response? How often are they audited? What certifications and policies are in place? Demand evidence of real-world practices, not just promises. By doing so, you ensure your partners meet the standards your business deserves and protect your organisation against both regulatory and operational risk.