Information technology compliance is mandated by most governments around the world if a company wants to operate in that country. Thus, IT security compliance is not a choice but a requirement.
Improving compliance with various standards both increase data security and help customers trust your company. Not to mention that full compliance with security regulations will eliminate the risk of being sued. In this article, we specified the four best practices to help you with IT security compliance.
What is IT security compliance?
IT companies store and use a variety of personal data of their customers or employees. They need to access this personal information to deliver better services to their customers and improve their products.
However, personal information falls into the category of sensitive data and companies need to specify the conditions on which they store, share, or use customer information.
In order to regulate and ensure data security, some countries set out binding standards and rules for companies that collect data from their users. These standards help companies protect their servers and networks against cyberattacks and data breaches.
Businesses that don’t comply with these security guidelines may face legal issues, jeopardizing profit and resulting in penalties. Customer trust will also be a huge problem if a company doesn’t meet legal data security requirements.
In essence, different countries have different guidelines on online security and data protection. Companies need to comply with these standards to increase the brand’s reputation and avoid legal issues.
Four Best Practices to Ensure IT Security Compliance
1-) Conduct regular risk assessment & create a plan
You can’t be sure about compliance if you don’t know your IT departments’ weaknesses. Thus, you need to conduct scheduled risk assessment operations on each part of your network.
Think about potential threats, set out policies to follow in case of a data breach, and always update your plan according to the latest guidelines.
Secondly, make sure to run pen-tests with your IT team to detect vulnerabilities in your network. This will help you decide where to improve your efforts to achieve full compliance.
Intuition states that 74% of companies are already prioritizing risk assessment policies, so make sure to keep up.
2-) Use security compliance tools
Different standards of countries make it significantly hard to comply with all of them. But luckily, there are great security compliance tools that facilitate the process.
If you decide to manage your security compliance with one of these tools, you’ll have access to the latest cybersecurity services on the market that ensures compliance. They also have experienced cybersecurity professionals who can help you comply with varying standards of different countries.
Their offerings also include automated cybersecurity practices such as identity verification, activity monitoring, or network segmentation. All of these things mitigate the risk of any cyberattack and improve your IT security compliance for a small price.
3-) Educate your IT department
The most responsible team for IT security regulations is your IT department. They are the ones who have experience in cybersecurity practices and data protection policies. But they might not be aware of the recent regulations.
That’s why you need to equip your first line of defense with the latest standards by educating them. Make sure your IT team understands the data they need to protect and put appropriate measures where needed.
4-) Data encryption & key management
Encrypting sensitive data is one of the most obvious ways of ensuring compliance and cybersecurity. Choose an encryption protocol and always monitor encrypted data. If some of them are now unnecessary, securely exterminate them.
You should always consider a data breach or eavesdropping probable, so make sure encryption keys are in the right hands and protected properly. Thanks to having a clear encryption policy, you’ll eliminate the risk of unauthorized key usage and resulting data breaches.
Conclusion
IT security compliance is beneficial to both companies and their customers. They protect compliant businesses from legal issues and profit losses. So data security regulations are not only mandatory but also desirable.
However, compliance levels may vary depending on the measures. If you want to achieve full compliance in your company, start by following these four practices and have better overall security.