Shared Responsibility Model
Division of responsibilities between SSM.ro, infrastructure providers, and the client
Security and compliance on the SSM.ro platform are a shared responsibility between SSM.ro (Consultia Digital S.R.L.), the infrastructure providers (Heroku, AWS), and the client. This page clarifies who is responsible for each layer.
Differs depending on the model
Shared Model (SaaS): infrastructure is managed by SSM.ro on Heroku + AWS S3. Enterprise Model (Dedicated): the AWS infrastructure is dedicated to the client — responsibility boundaries are established contractually. See Deployment Models.
Responsibility Matrix — Shared Model (SaaS)
| Layer | SSM.ro (Consultia Digital S.R.L.) | Providers (Heroku / AWS) | Client |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical infrastructure & network | — | ✅ Datacenter, hardware, network operation | — |
| Platform (dynos, DB, storage) | ✅ Configuration and operation | ✅ Managed service availability | — |
| The SSM.ro application | ✅ Development, security, patching | — | — |
| Encryption & backup | ✅ PITR configuration, S3 versioning/CRR | ✅ Execution of managed encryption/backup | Optional daily export to own archive |
| Accounts & roles within the tenant | Provides the tools (RBAC) | — | ✅ Manages users through the Super User |
| Periodic access review | Provides the lists and logs | — | ✅ Owns the process and the evidence |
| Document content | Does not verify the content | — | ✅ Responsible for legality/correctness |
| Document signing | Sends the document hash to the signature provider; identification data only in exceptional cases (qualified certificates) | — | ✅ Correctness of the data provided |
| Exercising GDPR rights | Processes requests as controller/processor | — | Forwards requests to data subjects |
Key Principles
- Organization isolation is enforced server-side by SSM.ro; the client does not need to configure anything to be isolated from other organizations (see IAM Principles).
- Management of the client's internal users (creation, roles, deactivation on departure) falls to the client's Super User — SSM.ro does not assign or review clients' internal access.
- Audit evidence for user activity is extracted by the client from their own commercial account (3 months of activity logs, downloadable).
- Infrastructure providers (Heroku, AWS) are responsible for the availability and security of managed services, in accordance with their own certifications and SLAs.
Responsibilities in the Enterprise Model
In the Enterprise model, the AWS infrastructure is dedicated to the client. The SLA is 99.9% guaranteed monthly availability; the exact boundaries (who administers the cloud accounts, maintenance windows) are defined in the service contract. SSO is implemented via SAML, with a single configuration for the primary domain, so federated identity management is handled in the client's identity provider; email/password authentication remains available for external accounts, and access to organizations is managed internally through roles.