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ROI CalculatorCompliance management is the set of procedures and policies that organizations use to achieve compliance with legal and regulatory requirements relevant to their information security practices. Compliance management involves an iterative, ongoing approach to identify regulations that apply to their operations, to determine if their current security measures meet legal and regulatory requirements, to implement any modifications to security measures and to continue to receive information from regulatory bodies regarding ongoing compliance.
Beyond ensuring compliance with regulations, compliance management helps protect sensitive data from breaches and cyber-attacks, while building and maintaining the trust of customers, partners, and stakeholders. It comprises a comprehensive set of policies detailing how organizations will store and manage sensitive data enterprise-wide.
To implement and adhere to rigid policies and to ensure appropriate levels of training are utilized, organizations must be diligent in enforcing these policies through employee training programs and conducting regular audits to identify areas of non-compliance.
Compliance management is a wide-ranging, multi-step method that ensures a company meets its regulatory and data protection duties. Here’s how the process is carried out:
All organizations must assess the current legal and regulatory framework prior to embarking on any compliance related initiative. For example, if they are making cyber security initiatives. As part of this, organizations should assess compliance with international standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 and other national laws and industry-specific frameworks to ensure compliance.
Once the legal and regulatory framework has been verified, organizations will then complete a comprehensive audit of their cyber security controls against that framework. By completing risk assessments and gap analyses, organizations can develop a list of identified vulnerabilities in their systems and practices that would be considered non-compliant or otherwise exposed to cyber threats.
Following the completion of the audit of current cyber security controls and exposure to legal and regulatory compliance, an organization can develop written policies and procedures that will meet all the identified compliance requirements and mitigate any risks that were identified from the assessment process. The written policies and procedures will serve as a guide to implement data protection measures throughout the entire organization.
Once the policies and procedures have been developed, the organization implements the associated controls to support the policies. They consist of both technical and administrative controls. The organization should implement these controls to ensure compliance with the current legal and regulatory framework and to improve the organization's overall resilience to external attacks.
An organization's ability to comply with regulations is dependent on the staff being aware of what their responsibilities are in protecting sensitive information; therefore it is vital that staff receive training that continues based on the organization's policies related to cyber security hygiene. In doing so, a culture of digital safety is created, and the organization protects itself from unauthorized access to sensitive data by demonstrating best practices.
Lastly, businesses need to continuously monitor their IT environments for potential breaches and take necessary actions quickly. Auditing must be conducted routinely to ensure the company remains in compliance. Each issue identified will be reviewed, and the process of continuous improvement will be re-initiated.
