The FTC Safeguards Rule isn’t new — but its updated requirements caught thousands of financial services firms off guard. For MSPs, that’s an opportunity.
What the Safeguards Rule Requires
The revised Safeguards Rule (effective June 2023) mandates that non-banking financial institutions implement a comprehensive information security program. Key requirements include:
- Designated Qualified Individual — Someone must own the security program
- Written risk assessment — Identify and evaluate risks to customer information
- Access controls — Limit who can access sensitive data
- Encryption — Protect data in transit and at rest
- MFA — Multi-factor authentication on all systems with customer data
- Continuous monitoring — Log and monitor access to information systems
- Incident response plan — Written plan for detecting, responding to, and recovering from security events
- Annual penetration testing — Plus bi-annual vulnerability assessments
- Board reporting — The Qualified Individual must report to the board annually
Why MSPs Should Care
Your clients in financial services — CPAs, insurance agencies, mortgage brokers, auto dealers, tax preparers — all fall under this rule. Most of them have no idea what’s required, and the ones that do are overwhelmed.
This is where you come in.
The MSP Compliance Opportunity
- Assessment services — Run gap analyses against FTC Safeguards requirements
- Remediation — Fix the gaps (MFA rollout, encryption, access controls)
- Evidence collection — Document everything for the Written Information Security Plan
- Ongoing monitoring — Continuous compliance, not a once-a-year checkbox
- Board reporting — Generate executive reports your clients can present to their boards
How ClearStax Helps
ClearStax Compliance includes the FTC Safeguards framework out of the box. You can:
- Run a full assessment against all Safeguards requirements
- Track remediation with assigned owners and due dates
- Collect evidence automatically via agent-based inspections
- Generate board-ready reports with compliance scores
- Manage multiple clients from a single dashboard
Stop juggling spreadsheets. Start delivering compliance at scale.
Ready to add FTC Safeguards compliance to your service stack? Book a demo to see ClearStax in action.