In today’s world, data is the most valuable asset of businesses, and their primary responsibility is to protect sensitive data at all times. That’s why securing data is regulated under global and local laws, compliance regulations, and standards. These compliance regulations require businesses to take necessary security measures and put data security protocols in place.
In short, businesses are obligated to meet compliance standards, rules and regulations, otherwise, they face regulatory fines, penalties, or more severe consequences, especially when a data breach occurs. Additionally, meeting compliance standards, and regulations helps a business to build a better reputation and increase its credibility in the eyes of its clients and customers.
But, meeting compliance requirements doesn’t mean your business is cyber secure. According to Forbes, accomplishing SOC 2 attestation and ISO 27001 certification ensures customers that you have data security protocols in place, but these certifications aren’t the indicators of being cyber secure. In other words, cybersecurity and compliance have different concepts, but they complete each other. To avoid regulatory penalties, and possible damages from cyber attacks, being a security-compliant business is very important.
What is Security Compliance?
Security compliance is a procedure that requires constant risk assessments, and an incident response plan in accordance with the regulations and standards. The main purpose of security compliance is to put enhanced security measures that are compatible with compliance regulations and fix vulnerabilities and regulatory gaps in your system. It enables businesses to mitigate the risks of potential cyber-attacks and breaches and detect the vulnerable areas in their cyber security posture. Security compliance is essentially putting more effective data management and protection policies in place.
If you don’t implement the required security tools, and policies, meeting the compliance requirements will be very time and money-consuming for your business. So, complying with constantly shifting regulations will most likely be daunting. When you have enhanced security tools and policies, complying with these requirements is easy.
To accomplish security compliance, working with a vendor that provides improved security tools can be a good start. NordLayer provides enhanced security compliance solutions that keep your corporate network and sensitive data safe while ensuring your businesses maintain and even exceed compliance requirements.
Why Do You Need Security Compliance?
We live in a world where cybercrimes are skyrocketing. Every day, these malicious actors use more sophisticated methods and tactics to steal sensitive data. When your business becomes a victim of a data breach, compliance regulators will apply severe penalties, and fines, and this incident will damage your reputation and credibility.
Today, many employees work remotely, this means businesses have to secure many end-points in different locations, with poor compliance, your organization will face increased risks of cyberthreats. Additionally, poor compliance can have a negative impact on your existing systems, and make your security systems inefficient to prevent data breaches.
When these variables are taken into account, businesses not only adhere to the regulations but also should implement security tools and policies that strengthen their cyber security posture.
How to Create Security Compliance Plan
Security compliance is essential for your organization. At first, it can be an intimidating concept, but it doesn’t have to be complex, or difficult when you apply a step-by-step approach to achieve it. Conducting a plan will make security compliance easy. Additionally, in each step, your compliance and security team should work together to cover every regulation and improve security measures to accomplish security compliance. Let’s briefly look at these steps.
1- Assessing Current Security Infrastructures
Assessing your current security infrastructure is the first thing you should do. List and document every security tool and policy you have. Then, define which type of data your company holds, and assess how your security tools and policies protect sensitive data.
2- Understanding Regulations and Requirements
Your compliance team should list which regulations apply and which requirements are needed. Then, comparing these requirements to your current infrastructure will allow you to find vulnerable and non-compliant areas in your system.
3- Mitigating Non-Compliant Areas
Mitigating non-compliant areas is critical for meeting compliance regulations and requirements. Once you find gaps and non-compliant areas, your security team should take measures to secure these areas.
4- Test Your Security Systems
The last step of your security compliance plan is to test your security system. It is critical to learn whether your business has achieved security compliance or not. For example, test your access control system to see if it is in place to prevent unauthorized users’ access to your network. In short, testing your security system will give you a better perspective about what is in place and what is not.
Last Words
Meeting compliance requirements and standards doesn’t make your business cyber secure against potential and existing threats. So, security compliance is essential to prevent possible breaches and avoid regulatory fines.
