Navigating Cybersecurity Regulations: Ensure Compliance and Know Where You Stand

Are you sweating over the fine print and security requirements? Are you trying to ensure your network is safe and your organization is meeting key regulatory standards? Whatever your situation is—you need a smart and secure compliance strategy. Read on to learn why and know where you stand. 

When it comes to stressing over regulatory and compliance standards, it feels impossible to keep up because there are so many policies, rules, and restrictions in place for organizations handling personal information. If your business gathers and stores sensitive information (like personally identifiable information such as health records or credit card details), It’s absolutely important to comply with standardized regulations like PIPEDA, GDPR, PCI and other government regulations / laws.

But where does one even start? 

With so many businesses storing data online, we don’t have to tell you it is absolutely necessary to protect client information; however, it’s important to do so while also meeting all regulatory requirements. But, how do you know where you stand? What type of data do you store, and which compliance act or standard do you need to follow? 

Let's take a closer look at some of the most common regulations. 
 
PCI-DSS 

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) is a standard created by American Express, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard, and Visa that deals with credit and debit card information.  It’s designed to protect the privacy of individual cardholders' financial details, and it applies to banks, retail stores, online vendors, and software developers alike that use or store such cards for processing payment.   
  
PIPEDA  

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) was put into place on April 13, 2000. This federal privacy law governs how private sector organizations collect, use, and disclose personal information during commercial activities. The commercial activity could include selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists. PIPEDA is currently under review and will likely be replaced in the next 24 months with a new privacy act touted to be even tougher than the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
  
GDPR 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the regulation that replaced the Data Protection Directive formally followed by members of the European Union. Basically, the GDPR requires companies who do business with EU citizens’ data must take certain steps to protect their data. This includes both the processing and the movement of data, as well as its sale and potential use or misuse by companies. The GDPR has had massive consequences for businesses both in the EU and across the world, as it not only affects companies hosted by the EU, (or its member states) but also companies that do business with citizens of those member states.  

We’ve only just scratched the surface of compliance regulations, but don’t let that stress you out. Even though there are many more to consider, our team of compliance and security experts are here to help. 

There are several standards that are published and recognized around the world to help your organization figure this out and stay on course… the question is, how do you implement them? 
 
Let’s look at the International Standards Organization as one body that helps organizations align their business to global regulations and laws. 

One great example is the ISO/IEC 27001 standard. This standard has the guidelines to implement an Information Security Management System (ISMS) to manage the security of the data your company touches. It also defines how everyone at your company will handle data internally and with external organizations. Furthermore, it addresses the baseline security practices that a company has and ensures that best business practices are being used to protect the information stored. 

There is an extension to the ISO/IEC 27001 standard known as ISO/IEC 27701. This extension expands the scope of the ISMS to include how your organization handles Privacy and ensures that PII is protected. By implementing a Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) on top of your ISMS, your organization is declaring that you have taken every step possible to secure, protect and keep the data private from unauthorized purview. 
 
But the original question about where one has to begin truly comes from within an organization. Implementing an ISMS and/or a PIMS does typically require technical modification, procedural adjustments of an organization and most importantly, education of the organization’s employees (i.e. cultural change).   
 
The problem is real, and is only getting worse over time thanks to threat actors wanting access to your data. No matter how big or small your organization is, we are all under attack, and it is up to us to keep our data safe, in turn protecting our clients. 

The Good News

There is good news though. Infinite IT has a group of highly certified professionals that focus on only one thing: protecting your business and your data. 
 
With our one-of-a-kind program, known as iComply, we conduct comprehensive GAP assessments of your company from IT, Process and Cultural perspectives, including your security infrastructure and policies to identify and develop a plan to keep your information private and protected. We have the only progressive program that is simple, affordable and fully managed by professionals that you cannot go without. 
 
Our simple methodology has helped several organizations bring their company up to a level of comfort while addressing the acceptable risks for the specific business needs. We do not use a one-size-fits-all model – everything we do is tailored to your business and right-sized to your needs.