The process of monitoring and reviewing systems, devices, and networks to ensure they conform with legal requirements, as well as industry and local cyber security standards, is known as cyber security compliance management.
Not following your compliance puts your business at risk of data breaches, threats, and fines from regulatory bodies. For example, individual violations of the Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) can result in fines ranging from $100 to $50,000. As a result, staying on top of cyber security compliance management is critical.
Keeping up with the current cyber security compliance requirements may be difficult since regulations, standards, and legislation are hard to understand and change frequently. However, with some help, it’s not impossible. Let’s see how you can make sure that your organization’s cyber security compliance is always under control.
Educate your IT department
You won’t be able to assure compliance no matter how solid your rules are or how modern the technology you’re implementing is if your employees don’t know how to properly apply them. That is why it’s critical to properly convey the regulations and ensure that your employees are aware of them.
Compliance training is critical and should be done on a regular basis to keep employees up to speed on the latest regulatory developments and to educate them about new tools and technology solutions.
Determine which regulations apply
It’s crucial to figure out which of the regulations apply to your company or organization. This necessitates first identifying or classifying the many sorts of data your company utilizes, followed by deciding which regulations apply to that data.
Since various regulations frequently have overlapping requirements, breaking it down into two phases allows businesses to save time and money by avoiding the duplication of work involved in adopting competing systems.
Use a risk-based strategy
A risk-based strategy is an approach for identifying, assessing, and prioritizing hazards to an organization. It’s a flexible approach that allows businesses to adjust their cyber security strategy to their own organizational demands and operational weaknesses.
It means that your security team is primarily concerned with lowering the chance and effect of a cyberattack on your business. An awareness of your company’s vital data, who would want to manipulate it, and how they might be able to do so is the first step in a risk-based strategy. Next, it necessitates subjective judgments, but a risk-based approach will ultimately pay off.
Test your incident response plans
An incident response plan (IRP) is a well-organized way of addressing and managing security incidents. It helps to mitigate the impact of probable security incidents, reducing operational, financial, and reputational risk. In the case of an incident, it also defines incident definitions, personnel duties, important processes to take, and individuals to contact.
It is vital to test the processes stated in the incident response plan. Businesses should not wait until an actual incident occurs to see if their response plan is effective. At the very least, incident response plans should be examined and verified once a year. They should also be updated anytime the company’s IT infrastructure or business, regulatory, or compliance structure changes.
Automate controls
With manual methods, it’s hard to maintain track of regulatory and security compliance efficiently as your company grows. By simplifying everyday tasks, boosting consistency, and providing frequent monitoring and reporting, automation allows you to focus on the larger picture.
Consider the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If vital assets and data are compromised, security companies must make a warning within 72 hours or risk significant fines. Organizations can automate breach notifications and even the remediation process with the correct controls in place. You can even get the help of professionals through services such as security compliance solutions by NordLayer and make the process trouble-free.
Takeaway
Following cyber security compliance rules is no longer a choice, but rather a need. If you want to avoid costly lawsuits, penalties, and fines, you must comply with cyber security regulations. However, managing it necessitates a thorough understanding of your industry’s compliance regulations as well as proactive measures to maintain your company’s security.
Hopefully, the best practices outlined above can help steer you in the right way when it comes to cyber security compliance management.
