A strong cybersecurity posture is a mix of hardware, software, processes, and policies that help achieve cybersecurity compliance. Read on to know more.
According to the 2021 Year End Data Breach QuickView Report, over 22 billion records were exposed worldwide across 4,145 publicly disclosed data breaches in 2021.
Will your business be the next to experience a breach?
Cybersecurity has become a major priority as the number of sophisticated cyberattacks increases. No company is immune to a data breach or attack—big or small, international or right at home—and cybersecurity will always be critical for your business’s success. It’s past time for business leaders and their boards to start taking the protection of their organizations more seriously and realize there is no 100% amnesty for cyber criminals to access confidential information.
Cybercrime safety has also become a national initiative, with the Biden administration publishing its national cybersecurity strategy earlier this month to ensure data and systems are protected from hackers. It is even more imperative for business board members to up their cybersecurity game and implement a systematic risk governance approach to ensure their organizations have appropriate preparations to respond and recover if and when a cyberattack strikes.
Understanding Cybersecurity Compliance
A strong cybersecurity posture is a mix of hardware, software, processes, and policies that help achieve cybersecurity compliance. Cybersecurity compliance protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information from cyber attacks, keeping your sensitive data out of the hands of bad actors. This data includes:
- Personally Identifying Information (PII)
- Protected Health Information (PHI)
- Financial Information
- Race, religion, IP addresses, biometric data, etc.
- And more
It isn’t just a cluster of strict and mandatory requirements for your business. In reality, it means your organization’s ability to adhere to industry standards related to information security and data privacy.
However, compliance doesn’t guarantee that your business is out of the cybercrime woods just yet.
Cybersecurity risks are everywhere. About 38% of corporate board directors believe overseeing cyber and data security is their most challenging issue, according to a report by Diligent Institute. Security breaches happen—even to organizations with the most robust cybersecurity systems. The rate of cyberattacks has caught up to the speed of implementing cybersecurity protocols to protect organizations from breaches. If you’re caught off guard and don’t have an action plan to defend your business, the situation could be worse than expected.
Compliance doesn’t stop once you have implemented your policies and controls—cybersecurity compliance and regulations constantly change. Noncompliance can happen if you’re careless and subject your enterprise to expensive penalties and fines. You must continuously track for new changes or risks in the regulatory environment and monitor the controls implemented to identify any room for enhancement.
The primary responsibility of ensuring your business complies with all cybersecurity regulations and standards falls on the shoulders of your CIO or CISO. Their role is critical in educating executives on new and evolving risks and the importance of investing in cybersecurity.
That’s why cybersecurity assessments are critical for checking the robustness of your cyber infrastructure.
How to Ensure Cybersecurity Compliance
Proactive cybersecurity is a vital part of protecting your business. Preventing cyberattacks before they happen rather than waiting for them to occur and then reacting to them maintains your company’s resilience.
However, despite company size, data breaches quickly escalate, snowballing into complex situations. They can have significant impacts, resulting in reputational damage, financial losses, and legal liabilities that may take years to resolve. Business leaders who hesitate to invest in a strong cybersecurity posture risk exposing vulnerabilities that interest hostile actors. Your business is only as strong as its infrastructure.
To ensure continuous compliance, it is crucial to monitor, review, and test cybersecurity compliance controls regularly. This helps to detect new threats as they emerge and evaluate compliance as new requirements are introduced or modified.
Cybersecurity assessments can help you identify and mitigate risks and ensure you follow regulations and standards. Establishing clear guidelines within your risk assessment process helps target vulnerabilities to focus on the crucial things required in the cybersecurity framework. New potential legislation in Europe will require software companies to prove their products are safe, making it the first continent to propose required cybersecurity assessments for the software industry.
It’s also important to think outside the box and consider testing your systems through actual ransomware simulations or white-hat hacking—ethical hackers who use penetration testing techniques to test an organization’s IT security. This helps find vulnerabilities before the bad guys do and ensure your readiness and response capabilities.
These insights will provide you with a comprehensive report that you can present to your board of directors and cybersecurity insurance providers and give you peace of mind knowing the company’s assets and reputation are protected.
Cybersecurity compliance needs to be viewed as a continuous organizational process. If you’re not putting the right practices in place to help protect you and your customers, it can lead to severe consequences for your business. It’s an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage, not another industry obligation.
Cyber compliance can help your business protect sensitive data, comply with legal requirements, maintain customer trust, and improve its overall security posture.
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