Let’s look at the key aspects of cybersecurity and compliance that every organization needs to understand.
But before that: what is cybersecurity compliance?
Think about it as a process of protecting your data and assets in line with information security standards, data privacy laws, industry regulations, and similar. The compliance process is different for each company – not only based on their size or location but also the industry.
Contents
Understand your (critical) data
Don’t focus solely on laws and regulations
Regularly perform risk assessments
Don’t forget about your vendor/third-party risk management
Cybersecurity compliance made easy: Expert webinar
Understand your (critical) data
Before you even start thinking about compliance, it’s important to understand what sensitive data means for your organization and what the value of such data is.
Sensitive data could be anything from your HR information, customer data, or trade secrets to patients’ health information or citizens’ personal data. The key identifier of sensitive data is that it must be kept private and protected because it may cause harm if published.
Similarly, the value of your data varies – for example, it could be purely monetary, or the data can hold an intrinsic value.
Remember that you’re not the only one who’s trying to classify your data. Cybercriminals are also making notes and guesses about what data you possess. They also know that data protection and encryption keep getting better and better, so often, they focus on less critical data of lower value to your company (e.g. ID card photos or customer names).
However, such data theft is still a pain point for your organization and can potentially lead to serious trouble.
Don’t focus solely on laws and regulations
Once you understand what data you have, the first thought might be to jump straight into compliance: how do we protect our sensitive data based on regulations and laws relevant to the data and our company?
Unfortunately, this approach may lead to overly complicated compliance processes and security gaps.
As Paul Greene, the chair of Harter Secrest & Emery LLP's Privacy and Data Security, highlights during an expert webinar about cybersecurity compliance: “There are varying tiers and layers of data protection regulation on the privacy and security side. And focusing only on your primary regulator will almost always lead to a gap, lead to some problem that you have in relation to different or adjacent regulatory requirement.”
Instead, focus on the “protect once – comply many” approach. Protect your data using security measures and tools that are in line with the strictest of regulations (or even beyond them).
Regularly perform risk assessments
There’s a plethora of new regulations being introduced almost every year, and many regulations and laws are regularly updated. Your organization needs to be constantly ready to implement new cybersecurity and compliance measures.
But before you start updating your systems and processes based on new regulations: Your cybersecurity compliance processes should always start with identifying your risks.
Based on your risk assessment results, you can think about and apply appropriate (remediation) security measures that work for your organization – based on your size, industry, environment complexity, and data.
Only then, turn your focus to new/upgraded regulations and standards and how they fit into your current system.
Don’t forget about your vendor/third-party risk management
Cybersecurity compliance doesn’t concern just your systems and data – if you’re using third-party services and external vendors, you need to consider also their risk management, cybersecurity and compliance.
A good way to ensure compliance is to have a standard set of clauses incorporated into vendor contracts. The document should be based on your compliance requirements and security controls.
However, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have leverage over every third party you use. For example, you don’t have much leverage over Microsoft if you’re using their office tools internally. But most likely, you collaborate much more closely with your PAM vendor, thus you have more leverage over them and can introduce a set of cybersecurity compliance clauses.
Cybersecurity compliance made easy: Expert webinar
Learn how to achieve cybersecurity compliance while managing your legal and security risks.
We at SSH Communications Security have joined forces with two compliance and legal experts – Paul Greene, the chair of Harter Secrest & Emery LLP's Privacy and Data Security, and Paul Robinson, the founder of cybersecurity firm Tempus Network. During the webinar, our experts blended legal insights with practical strategies to show how you can effectively manage and mitigate cyber risks and protect your data.
Fill in the form below and watch the expert webinar now:
