medium match confidence
Sentence-level differences:
- Reworded sentence: "In the ordinary course of our business, we store, transmit, generate, and process our and our customers’ confidential, proprietary and sensitive data."
Current (2024):
In the ordinary course of our business, we store, transmit, generate, and process our and our customers’ confidential, proprietary and sensitive data. As our business expands across the globe, the number of employees, contractors, vendors and other third parties remotely…
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In the ordinary course of our business, we store, transmit, generate, and process our and our customers’ confidential, proprietary and sensitive data. As our business expands across the globe, the number of employees, contractors, vendors and other third parties remotely accessing our systems continues to grow. Our growing business operations increase our exposure to cyberattacks by a range of actors, who have used and will continue to use assorted tactics, techniques, and 18 18 18 Table of Contents Table of Contents procedures, including malicious code, ransomware, social engineering, business email compromises, supply chain attacks, denial of service attacks and similar internet-enabled, fraudulent activity. Further, during times of war and other major conflicts, we and our third-party providers may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of geopolitically motivated attacks, including cyberattacks, that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain and ability to provide our services. The cybersecurity threats are not limited to actors operating in the systems we control directly. Our increasing reliance on third-party providers and public cloud infrastructure introduces new cybersecurity risks to our business operations. We rely on third-party service providers and technologies to operate business systems in a variety of contexts, and supply chain attacks have increased in frequency and severity. While we have a vendor security review process, we cannot guarantee that our third-party service providers or our supply chain infrastructure have not been compromised or that they do not contain exploitable defects or bugs that could result in a breach of or disruption to our platform, systems and network or the systems and networks of third parties that support us and our business. Our ability to monitor the data security measures of our third-party providers is limited, and we necessarily depend in part on our providers to have in place and maintain adequate security measures to protect against unauthorized access, cyberattacks and the mishandling of data. Further, employee error or malfeasance in configuring, maintaining and using these services could impact our ability to monitor and secure them effectively. While we have identified vulnerabilities in our products and services in the past and will continue to do so in the future, we cannot be certain that we will be able to identify all vulnerabilities or address the vulnerabilities of which we become aware. Further, there have been delays and may continue to be delays in developing patches that can be effectively deployed to address vulnerabilities. Third parties have, in the past, actively searched for and exploited actual and potential vulnerabilities in our software and will do so in the future. Moreover, the incorporation of third-party or open-source software code into our or our customers’ systems increases the risk of exploitation of vulnerabilities, such as the vulnerability in the Java logging library known as “log4j” that affected our industry. We also have inherited and may in the future inherit additional security risks from acquiring or partnering with other companies. In most instances, our customers are responsible for administering access to the data held in their particular instance for their employees and service providers. While our software is delivered with certain preset configurations, we understand that our customers require flexibility to configure the Now Platform to their specific business needs. We work closely with our customers to help them evaluate their security configurations, including providing guidance to align configuration settings with their business needs. Yet, in configuring our platform, both our employees and customers have made errors in the past and may do so again in the future. We are aware that, on occasion, our customers and ServiceNow have configured certain settings on our platform, or retained preset configurations, in a manner not aligned with their preferred security levels, which can result in, and has resulted in, information being made more widely accessible than intended. Such misconfigurations can be, and have been, identified publicly, increasing the risk of data being exposed unintentionally. While we have security measures and a data governance framework in place designed to protect our and our customers’ information and prevent data loss, these measures may not be effective at preventing material breaches caused by intentional or unintentional actions or inactions by employees, contractors or third parties. Techniques used to sabotage or to obtain unauthorized access to systems are constantly evolving and may go undetected until a successful attack occurs. Moreover, we have experienced security incidents, which may reoccur in the future, that resulted in unauthorized access to, loss, or inadvertent disclosure of confidential, proprietary and sensitive information. We have observed attempts by third parties to induce or deceive our employees, contractors or users to fraudulently obtain access to our or our customers’ data or assets. Further, our employees have fallen victim to phishing attacks in the past and may again in the future. An actual or perceived security breach can have a material effect on ServiceNow’s operations, finances and reputation. The adverse consequences can include accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of or access to data; disruptions to our services; diversion of funds; litigation; indemnification and other contractual obligations; regulatory investigations; government fines and penalties; reputational damage; negative publicity; loss of sales, customers, and partners; mitigation and remediation expenses; and other material costs and liabilities. In addition, the assessment and response to security incidents, as well as implementation of appropriate safeguards to protect against future incidents, can lead to material economic and operational consequences. These consequences can result regardless of whether the incident is suffered by us, affects our third-party service providers or stems from customers action or inaction. Moreover, even if a breach is unrelated to our security programs or practices, it could still cause us reputational harm and require us to undertake significant efforts to assess and respond to the breach, including further protecting our customers from their own vulnerabilities. There can be no assurance that any limitations of liability provisions in our subscription agreements, terms of use or other agreements would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from any such liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim. In addition, while we maintain insurance coverage, we cannot be certain that such coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or 19 19 19 Table of Contents Table of Contents in sufficient amounts to cover potential losses from a security incident or that an insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim.
View prior text (2023)
Our operations involve the storage, transmission and processing of our customers’ confidential, proprietary and sensitive data, which may include personally identifiable information, protected health information, financial information and, in some cases, government information. While we have security measures and a data governance framework in place designed to protect customer information and prevent data loss, these protective mechanisms we have implemented may not be effective at preventing material breaches caused by intentional or unintentional action or inaction by employees or third parties, which may result in the unauthorized access or release of our instances and ultimately our or our customers’ data, IP and other confidential business information. Third parties have attempted to fraudulently induce employees, contractors, or users to disclose information or to gain access to our or our customers’ data, and we have been the target of increasingly sophisticated email and text message scams that attempt to acquire personal information or company assets. Further, we have experienced an increase in the number and sophistication of cyberattacks and security challenges as the growing number of employees, vendors and other third parties that remotely access our systems increase our exposure to attack. Computer malware, ransomware, viruses, hacking, phishing and denial of service attacks by third parties have become more prevalent in our industry, and similar malicious attacks have been made against our and our third-party service providers’ systems in the past and may occur again in the future. Our employees have fallen victim to phishing attacks in the past and may again in the future. The frequency and sophistication of these attacks have increased, and it appears that cyber crimes and cyber criminal networks, some of which may be state-supported, have substantial resources and may target U.S. enterprises or our customers and their use of our products. In addition, we have established extensive development and testing environments for our engineers developing new products and features. Security protocols in those environments have necessarily been less rigorous than in environments housing customer data, but a vulnerability or security defect arising out of our development and testing environment could become incorporated in code imported to our environments housing customer data. Similarly, in the unique circumstances where customer data may be utilized in developer environments for testing or learning, that data may be at greater risk. Because techniques used to sabotage, obtain unauthorized access to systems or prohibit authorized access to systems change frequently and generally may not be detected until successfully launched against a target, we have been and may continue to be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. This has included and may continue to include underlying infiltration of pre-existing systems, including those of our third-party service providers or customers, perpetrated by more sophisticated or state-supported attackers, including foreign cybersecurity attacks on U.S. technology companies and retaliatory cybersecurity attacks stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine or other geopolitical tensions. It may also include exploitation of vulnerabilities in third party or open source software code that may be incorporated into our own or our customers’ systems, such as the vulnerability in the Java logging library known as “log4j” identified in late 2021 that affected our industry. The occurrence of these and other more sophisticated or state-supported attack campaigns may increase as geopolitical tensions and intermittent warfare continue or escalate outside of the U.S. For example, due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and rising tensions with China, we and our customers, third-party vendors and service providers are subject to a heightened risk of cybersecurity attacks, phishing attacks, viruses, malware, ransomware, hacking or similar breaches from state-supported actors, including attacks that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain, and ability to make available or sell our products and services. We devote significant financial and personnel resources to implement and maintain security measures while meeting customer expectations as to the performance of our systems; however, as cybersecurity threats develop and grow more complex and sophisticated over time, such as in connection with geopolitical warfare, we will continue to make significant further investments to protect data and infrastructure, but a residual risk may remain despite our preventative efforts. A security breach suffered by us or our third-party service providers, an attack against our service availability or unauthorized access or loss of data could result in a disruption to our service, litigation, service level agreement claims, indemnification and other contractual obligations, regulatory investigations, government fines and penalties, reputational damage, loss of sales and customers, mitigation and remediation expenses and other significant costs and liabilities. In addition, we may incur significant economic and operational consequences in order to appropriately assess and respond to security incidents and to implement appropriate safeguards to protect against future incidents. We also cannot be certain that insurance coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or in sufficient amounts to cover the potentially significant losses that may result from a security incident or an insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. 19 19 19 Table of Contents Table of Contents Additionally, as we increase reliance on third-party and public cloud infrastructure, we depend in part on third-party security measures to protect against unauthorized access, cyberattacks and the mishandling of data. However, our ability to monitor our third-party service providers’ data security is limited. Similarly, employee error or malfeasance in configuring, maintaining, and using services offered by third-party providers may affect our ability to monitor and secure such services. Employees have made errors in this area in the past and may do so again in the future. Any breach of our providers’ security measures or misconfiguration or misuse of our software or our providers’ services may result in unauthorized access to, or the misuse, loss or destruction of, our and our customers’ data or in a violation of our terms or applicable law, which may result in reputational harm or liability. Further, in most instances, our customers administer access to the data held in their particular instance for their employees and service providers. While we offer tools and support, customers are not required to utilize them and may suffer a cybersecurity attack on their own systems, unrelated to our own, and allow a malicious actor access to the customer’s information held on our platform. Even if such a breach is unrelated to our security programs or practices, such breach could cause us reputational harm and require us to incur significant economic and operational consequences in order to adequately assess and respond to the breach, including further protecting our customers from their own vulnerabilities, and to implement appropriate safeguards to protect against future breaches. Digital supply chain attacks have increased in frequency and severity. We cannot guarantee that third parties and our supply chain infrastructure have not been compromised or that they do not contain exploitable defects or bugs that could result in a breach of or disruption to our platform, systems and network or the systems and networks of third parties that support us and our business. Third parties may also exploit vulnerabilities in, or obtain unauthorized access to, platforms, systems, networks, or physical facilities utilized by us or our third-party vendors or service providers. Furthermore, supply chain disruptions due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and resulting legal or regulatory developments) and any indirect effects may further complicate any existing supply chain constraints.