City-mart, a supermarket chain,used to outsource its logistics service. Over a period of time, the company discovered an irregularity in the amount of products delivered and the payments collected for those products. It was found that the systems for payment acceptance and logistics were breached by a foreign agent in the firm, which led to the termination of the outsourcing contract by City-mart. Which of the following would be the most appropriate issue related to outsourcing in this scenario?

a. Negative impact on customer relationships and satisfaction
b. Data security and integrity issues
c. Vertical integration
d. Horizontal integration

b. Data security and integrity issues
A key outsourcing issue is concern over maintaining data security and integrity to safeguard against data security lapses. Indeed, a study by computer security firm Trustwave found that in nearly two-thirds of 450 data breaches examined, an outsourcing firm responsible for IT system support, development, or maintenance had introduced security flaws that were easily exploited by hackers