Everything You Need to Know About Compliance Management in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a complicated system whose main aim is to protect your hardware and software infrastructure from potential vulnerabilities that can affect your business. Regulatory compliance is very important for your business as it will help you in avoiding unnecessary fines. Some companies think that committing to industry-standard control will be an inconvenience for them. However, it is the best way to secure your systems and network from vulnerabilities. In this article, we are going to discuss compliance management in Cybersecurity.

What is cybersecurity compliance?

Cybersecurity compliance simply means that you will align your security measures with some pre-defined security controls and measures. This will help you in ensuring data confidentiality. Organizations should go for a systematic risk governance approach for adhering to regulatory authorities. You can meet the data protection and management requirements by following pre-defined security measures.

Compliance management will help you in ensuring that all your internal policies, IT initiatives, and workflow will align with your industry regulations. This effort is always ongoing as the attack surface is increasing with time. It is important to ensure that your data and users are protected from cyber-attacks.

Why is Compliance management important for your business?

Compliance management is very important for every business as the fines for non-compliance are huge. Regulatory bodies are very strict when it comes to healthcare and financial institutions. This is mainly because they are dealing with sensitive customer information.

If you are not following the HIPAA policy, then the fines can range from $100 to $50000 per violation. Healthcare businesses have to stay compliant with HIPAA as the fines for non-compliance are very high. Similarly, financial institutions need to comply with PCI DSS compliance. The fines for non-compliance can range from $5000 to $10000 per month until your business is compliant.

If your business needs to follow multiple industry regulations, then you might need to deal with multiple penalties. The GDPR is another very important security standard. Every business that is operating in EU countries needs to follow this compliance. The maximum violation penalty is $23 million USD or 4% of your annual turnover. If 4% of your annual turnover is more than $23 million USD, then they will take 4% of your turnover. This type of fine can destroy the financial system of your business.

Compliance management will also help you in building cyber resilience. It will help you in improving your security posture. Thus, you can protect your business from attackers. A successful data breach can completely destroy your business. Thus, it is very important to ensure that you are protecting your data.

How to create a good compliance management system?

Compliance teams should monitor your network for security risks. They have to ensure that you are following all the legal requirements. Compliance teams should deploy the correct actions for dealing with these compliance issues. You should ensure that your board of directors and managers know about your compliance efforts. Your compliance management system will depend on these main pillars:

1. Monitor attack surface: You should identify security vulnerabilities that are present in your IT systems. It is important to protect your network from these vulnerabilities.
2. Prioritize risk: You should organize all these vulnerabilities according to their potential impact on your sensitive data.
3. Remediate risks: You should address security risks. This will help you in protecting your network from security risks.
4. Report your compliance efforts: You should document all the compliance efforts to your key stakeholders. This will ensure that your key stakeholders will know about your compliance efforts.

Compliance Management Challenges 

Many organizations are still not following compliance management frameworks. There are still three main challenges that organizations need to deal with. If you have advanced knowledge of these challenges, then it will help you in protecting your business from attackers.

1. Attack surface is always increasing

Organizations are moving toward cloud technology as it will help them in saving a lot of money. However, this also means that your attack surface is rapidly increasing with time. Cyber attackers have now more attack vendor options that they can use. If you are not using the right security solutions, then your business will suffer. It is important to manage your risk assessments for measuring compliance violations.

2. IT security solutions are not scalable

Organizations are expanding their IT infrastructure with time. However, IT cybersecurity strategies are lagging behind. It is difficult to scale these IT security strategies with your business. This lag will prevent you from quickly detecting the security vulnerabilities. Thus, there will be gaps in your compliance strategy. Poor scalability is generally the result of dense infrastructure.

3. Complexity

Modern IT environments are very complex in nature. They are multi-tiered in nature. Also, they are located in multiple geographical locations. Thus, it is difficult to deploy effective cybersecurity solutions. It is important to coordinate your compliance management policies. Timely compliance reporting is hard as you need to manage a very large IT environment.

How to build your cybersecurity compliance plan?

The regulatory requirements will depend on your business industry and territory. If you are operating in the healthcare industry, then you need to follow HIPAA compliance. Similarly, if you are operating in an EU country, then you need to follow the GDPR compliance. It is always a good idea to simplify complicated concepts in simple steps. You can follow these steps for building your cybersecurity compliance plan:

1. Compliance team

Every organization should have dedicated IT professionals who can help them in assessing cybersecurity compliance. Clear responsibility and ownership will help you in creating a responsive IT security environment. If you are short on funds, then your IT team can help you in assessing your compliance. You can partner up with a good MSP like Bleuwire for implementing security controls. This will ensure that you will get access to the best IT security professionals and controls.

2. Risk analysis

You should have a risk analysis process. This will help you in finding risks in your organization. It is important to identify all the risks that can affect your information assets. The risk assessment will help you in setting the risk level of every risk. It is important to ensure that your network is secure from these risks. Risk analysis will help you in determining the risk impact of every risk. This will help you in prioritizing the risks according to their risk impact. Setting risk tolerance is also important for your business.

3. Setting Security controls

You should implement security controls that will help you in handling the risk. There are various security controls that you need to implement. Start by ensuring that all your data is encrypted. Network firewalls will protect your network from bad actors. Good password policies will ensure that your employees are using strong passwords. Attackers can’t use simple brute force attacks if you are following good password policies.

Network access controls will help you in strengthening your network security. Employee training is also very important. You should ensure that your employees know about the best IT security practices. This will protect your business from ransomware and phishing attacks. An incident response plan will help you in responding to cyber incidents. These are some common security controls that you should implement for protecting your business.

4. Security procedures and policies

You should document all the security policies and procedures that you are going to follow. This will help you in following these security policies. It is important to align these security policies with your security requirements. You should also regularly revise these security procedures. This will ensure that you will stay compliant with new security laws.

5. Monitor

Active monitoring will help you in checking which security controls are actually working for your business. This will help you in improving your security controls. It will help you in identifying new risks. You might need new security controls for dealing with these risks. Sometimes you can deal with these risks by updating your existing security controls. Your IT security strategy is going to be a living document. It will keep changing with time. Thus, you should ensure that you are regularly monitoring your network.

Best Practices to Improve your compliance management

1. Scan your network

You should continuously scan your network or attack surface. This will help you in identifying security issues in your network. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire will help you in regularly monitoring your network. This will ensure that your IT department won’t waste its time and resources scanning your network.

You can also conduct audits for finding vulnerabilities in your network. First, you should go for an internal audit. This will help you in finding common vulnerabilities in your network. You should also conduct an external audit for finding more complex vulnerabilities in your network. This will help you in securing your attack surface from attackers.

2. Combine audits for better results

Organizations are still not trying to streamline their audit efforts. According to us, you should take a year-round approach to conduct audits and assessments. Try to conduct audits whenever possible. IT security audits are an invaluable tool for your organization.

These audits will help you in finding vulnerabilities in your systems. Your IT team can respond to these vulnerabilities. It will help you in gaining better visibility into your team’s efforts. You should determine the goal of every audit. It is also a good idea to combine both your internal and external audits. You should first conduct an internal IT audit. The findings of this IT audit will help you in improving your systems. If your IT team thinks that they have a perfect IT system, then go for the external audit. This will help you in finding blind spots in your security strategy. Thus, you can work on fixing these issues.

3. Monitor compliance issues

If you are onboarding new vendors, then they can also introduce unique security risks. This will have a direct impact on staying compliant. You should ensure that your vendors are also following the best security practices for protecting their data.

4. Automate tedious tasks

The biggest challenge that you need to solve during the audit process is manual and repetitive tasks. These tasks will waste a lot of time and resources. More than 27% of the time is spent on these tasks.

You can easily streamline and automate these tasks. This will help you in freeing up your IT staff also. Audit automation software will help you in centralizing evidence collection. This technology will help you in linking multiple pieces of evidence.

5. Prepare for the future

The industry regulations are going to become stricter with time. You should monitor the latest news about the privacy regulations that can affect your business. This will help you in preparing your business for the future. You can work with your compliance partner for ensuring that you are ready for the future. They will help you in laying the groundwork for these new security regulations.

Conclusion

Compliance management is very important for every organization. It will help you in protecting your business from unnecessary fines and penalties. Compliance management will also ensure that your network is protected from attackers. It is your responsibility to protect your user data from attackers. You should ensure that you are using the best security controls for protecting your network. If you are providing the best security controls to your users, then it will help you ultimately attract more users.

The best way to stay compliant is by working with a good MSP. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire will ensure that you are staying compliant with industry regulations like HIPAA and PCI DSS. They will help you in implementing security controls and policies. This will ensure that you can easily follow the IT security compliance program. They will also regularly monitor your network. This will help you in protecting your network from attackers. Bleuwire will help you in achieving security compliance standards. They will help you in meeting your customer data protection expectations. If you need more information regarding IT security services, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.