Service setup and design Who does what? Certification Sub processors and hosting locations Hosting sustainability Always up-to-date Server management Security Availability & Continuity Access management Encryption Exit strategy Contact us
TOPdesk SaaS has an SOC 2 certification, which is audited annually, covering the previous period from April 1 to March 31. The certification report by the external auditor can be requested through your customer success manager (see Contact us).
SOC 2 has been chosen as the most applicable basis for reporting on our SaaS services. This international auditing standard is used to check if the risk management systems regarding security, availability, confidentiality and privacy are adequate for the desired goal, and verifies that the targets set by TOPdesk have been met in the previous period.
The SOC 2 certification also covers subcontractors. This means that TOPdesk verifies that the data centers used have sufficient (data) security measures, including relevant audits, and certifications on the services provided (also see Hosting locations and Who does what). Our auditor verifies that TOPdesk has requested and inspected the relevant certificates.
A SOC 2 certification always concerns the past, as the auditor tests whether the controls were sufficient during the time since the last audit. TOPdesk is committed to continue improving our security and procedures. If necessary, a bridge letter can be created to show the improvements we've made since the last audit.
Additionally, our SOC2 report includes a framework mapping, showing how controls of the ISAE 3000 SOC2 audit report map to ISO 27001.
We strive to make our products as efficient and sustainable as possible. A large part of the environmental impact of our products comes from hosting our customers’ SaaS environments. All of the Leaseweb hosting locations that we use run on 100% renewable energy. Sustainability details per Leaseweb hosting location can be found by clicking on the site name (e.g. AMS-01). All Microsoft Azure hosting locations operate carbon neutral and have been carbon neutral since 2012.
Read more about Azure’s sustainability.
Server managementUsing TOPdesk SaaS, you can rest assured your data is hosted on up-to-date hardware, running the latest security updates, and with all relevant server hardening methods. The TOPdesk SaaS network is completely separated from the TOPdesk corporate network, and all TOPdesk SaaS servers are deployed automatically and registered in our CMDB. This has numerous advantages:
Management access to the TOPdesk SaaS network is only possible from a secure multi-factor authentication gateway server, using a personal account with sufficient permissions. Access to this gateway server is closely monitored, and the multi-factor authentication set-up ensures administrators are always directly personally notified when someone tries to misuse their credentials.
As the TOPdesk SaaS network only consists of virtual machines on servers in professional data centers, there is no need for removable media (USB drives), WiFi connections, printers, and other common office devices. This reduces the attack surface of our SaaS network, and prevents malware infections.
At TOPdesk, we take your data security seriously. Recognizing that security is an ongoing process, we continually strive to improve the security of our hosting services, software and internal procedures. You can read more about our security efforts below, and on our Tech blog:
On the Contact us section of this page you can find more information about reporting security issues.
We only allow secure connections to TOPdesk SaaS environments. HSTS preloading is used to ensure all common browsers force users to a secured connection. The strength of our SSL certificate (used to encrypt the connection) is evaluated on a regular basis and currently has an A+ score from Qualys SSL labs.
TOPdesk uses a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for worldwide fast availability of TOPdesk environments, for (D)DOS protection and to block known threats. A Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system is used to detect attacks against our network in an early stage. These systems are monitored 24/7 by a Security Operations Center with certified security experts.
Additionally, you can use your own intrusion detection system and link this to the TOPdesk (access) logs. It's also easy to set up an IP restriction for your TOPdesk SaaS environment, so only your colleagues have access your TOPdesk environment.
Antivirus and malware definitions are updated daily. File scans during upload, and regular full storage scans, ensure your users can safely work with attachments.
Servers are hardened by only allowing predefined connections, setting all relevant security settings and monitoring these settings against a desired state. TOPdesk will also ensure all relevant updates are installed in a timely fashion (see Server management and Always up to date).
Management access is limited to a small group of TOPdesk SaaS administrators and is only possible using a personal account and via a multi-factor authentication (MFA) gateway (see Access management). Separate servers are configured for management access, which are hardened and closely monitored.
Your data is stored separate from other customers' data. Customer specific files (like attachments) are stored in a folder which can only be accessed by your dedicated TOPdesk environment. Folder and file permissions ensure that only the TOPdesk environment that created a file can access it.
This design also ensures that malware can't spread within our SaaS network. Only your TOPdesk environment can access your files and doesn't have permissions to execute something, or to access files outside your folder, preventing viruses from spreading.
A similar design is used for the database management; your TOPdesk environment can only connect to it's dedicated database, and database permissions ensure that no application but your TOPdesk environment is allowed to access the data. This dual layer of security ensures that data remains segregated from other customers, and can never be accessed by unauthorized users.
Secure coding guidelines ensure our software is of high quality and safe to use. Our measures include:
During development all software components and dependencies are scanned for known vulnerabilities. If no problems are found, the software is compiled and automatically tested. When all tests are successful, the software is deployed on a live environment which is scanned (black-box) for vulnerabilities on a daily basis. A daily automated penetration test verifies if common or previously found issues can be exploited. These tests include known threats and OWASP vulnerabilities.
The daily automated vulnerability scans and penetration tests are executed by an external auditor. To verify the scan results, improve future scans, and detect new issues specific to the TOPdesk software, a certified independent security expert performs a security test at least every 3 months. If the security test, penetration test, or vulnerability scan results in any actionable findings, TOPdesk will resolve these with the highest priority.
You can also execute your own penetration test or vulnerability scan, but please inform us beforehand.
These efforts have led to an SOC 2 audit report (see certification), which you can request to verify the security of our procedures and processes.
We aim to keep all TOPdesk SaaS environments online 24/7. Our target uptime in the standard SLA for TOPdesk SaaS production environments is 99.9%. The average uptime of all TOPdesk SaaS production environments (24/7, excluding scheduled maintenance) in Q3 2024 was 99.96%.
For test environments we strive to maintain the same high availability, however they're not included in the SLA as they may be subject to necessary interventions for providing the SaaS production environments uptime level like troubleshooting, testing purposes or load balancing, which can result in lower availability compared to production environments.
Several measures ensure the availability of TOPdesk SaaS environments:
Monitoring and incident responseTOPdesk has a 24/7 monitoring system on all TOPdesk SaaS environments and servers. The monitoring system verifies health metrics for every TOPdesk environment, like the (internal and external) availability, database connection and search index availability. Servers are also monitored on relevant metrics e.g. availability, CPU usage, memory usage and available disk space. To ensure our back-up system works as expected, we also monitor the last back-up restore test for database servers.
Should the monitoring system detect a problem, TOPdesk operators are immediately notified. During the night, a 24/7 stand-by shift ensures issues are quickly resolved. Issues affecting multiple TOPdesk environments are published on our status page and via My TOPdesk. You can also verify the monitoring results for your environment(s) on our portal, and (if desired) immediately schedule follow-up actions like a restart of your TOPdesk environment, or submit a ticket for our Support team.
Back-up procedures ensure we can continue to operate in the unlikely event that data becomes unreachable:
Back-up and restore procedures are tested at least monthly. A monitoring system ensures the last restore test for each site was no longer than 30 days ago. As servers are deployed automatically, recovering from a data center loss is hardly different from day to day operations.
Our disaster recovery procedures and back-up systems ensure quick recovery times. In over 75% of all cases we are able to restore all services within 15 minutes.
In case of serious failures within a site, redundancy and fail over procedures ensure:
In the unlikely event of a total site failure (datacenter is lost):
You can always stay up-to-date regarding the availability of TOPdesk SaaS environments by checking the availability of your environment on our customer portal (My TOPdesk) and by visiting our SaaS Status blog.
TOPdesk can link to many identity providers (IdPs) meaning you can easily control who has access to your TOPdesk environment, without setting up a separate login system. Simply link TOPdesk to your existing IdP and you can log in using Single sign-on (SSO). Our consultants can help out to create a secure link between both systems.
TOPdesk allows for role-based interfaces and authorizations, and access is adjustable on a granular level. You can choose which services each user (or user group) has access to, and whether the user has read, write, or advanced permissions. Roles and permission groups can be easily defined and changed in the interface by selecting the appropriate permissions through checkboxes.
Via our customer portal (My TOPdesk) you control your TOPdesk SaaS environment. You can manage which users are allowed to request changes to the environment, schedule actions and request other changes. TOPdesk will only execute changes requested by contacts that have previously been registered as 'SaaS Main Contact' person in our system, to prevent unauthorized changes.
TOPdesk employees can only access your TOPdesk SaaS environment when you have requested them to do so, for instance when you’ve asked our Support team for help.
All TOPdesk Support staff that might be granted access to your environment will have:
You can even determine whether TOPdesk employees can access your TOPdesk environment and limit this to your geographical region. You can configure this via Functional settings > Login settings > General in TOPdesk.
TOPdesk won't store any passwords for your environment, TOPdesk employees will only have access using a personal account from a secure TOPdesk authentication server.
You can (automatically) download the access logs for your environment to verify who accessed the environment, and at what time. Access logs include all login attempts and information to identify the source, like IP addresses. As the access logs can be accessed automatically, you can link them to your own Intrusion Detection System.
TOPdesk stores access logs for half a year. If you'd like to store the logs for a longer period, you can download a copy.
You can also request to make the full TOPdesk logs available for automated access. This allows you to review all activity in your TOPdesk environment, including settings changes, permissions changes, and new accounts. The full TOPdesk logs will be available for up to 3 days, but you can store a local copy if you need them longer.
It's possible to limit the availability of your TOPdesk environment to a certain IP range for additional security. To request an IP whitelist, use the form on our customer portal.
Also see our privacy policy and the Security section of this page.
EncryptionEncryption of stored data protects against data theft by someone with direct access to the disks on which the data is stored. TOPdesk has covered this risk in several ways.
The following steps have been taken to prevent theft of data:
Encrypted connections
A related risk to theft of stored data, is interception of data before it is stored. This risk is covered by only allowing encrypted connections (HTTPS) with TOPdesk SaaS environments. HSTS preloading ensures all connections are automatically started using HTTPS by all common browsers.
Regular checks determine whether there are known errors in used communication protocols, after which unsafe protocols are disabled as soon as possible. These measures resulted in an A+ score for the TOPdesk SaaS SSL certificate on Qualys SSL Labs, an independent party that assesses the strength of secure connections.
Contact usIf you have any questions about our SaaS hosting, don’t hesitate to contact TOPdesk Support for more information.
We appreciate customers and security researchers reporting vulnerabilities in our software and infrastructure to us.
If you plan to execute a test on our product or SaaS infrastructure, please contact your account manager or our Support department and ask for the collaboration agreement that we have in place for this purpose. It provides guidelines on how to responsibly test our services and work together with us, which for instance prevents our security team from interfering with your tests when detected by our monitoring.
Read more about how to report findings on our Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure page.
All security incidents are treated with high priority. Our Support team is trained in recognizing security incidents and will immediately escalate these requests to a security expert. You can find more information about incident response procedures on our Tech blog.
We aim to provide customers with an indication on the severity and possible mitigating steps within 1 working day. For the fastest response, please call our Support team to report a possible security issue. You can also report a security issue in our customer portal (My TOPdesk) or send an e-mail to security@topdesk.com.
If a modification in the product is necessary to remedy a vulnerability, we start working on that immediately and aim to incorporate it in the next release of our product.
