The explosion of remote work over the past few years leaves many organizations particularly vulnerable when it comes to data. Because of this shift, compliance to security frameworks set forth by experts has never been more important.
If such compliance hasn’t been a focus for your organization so far, it’s time to change that. Here’s what you need to know about compliance and where to start.
So What is Compliance?
The term compliance refers to the process of adhering to or following rules, regulations, laws, or guidelines. These laws or guidelines are normally put forth by a governing body, regulatory agency, or panel of experts and are meant to maintain ethical practices, legal obligations, or industry-specific guidelines.
How Much Does Compliance Matter?
These guidelines are critical to many companies dealing with vulnerable data - which is really any company today that has customers and accepts payments from them.
Compliance ensures that businesses operate within the boundaries of the law and maintain technology standards. Importantly, failure to meet these compliance structures can result in legal action, fines, lawsuits, reputational damage, even closure of the company - all things that most private businesses desperately hope to avoid.
Furthermore, compliance is helpful in supporting the practice of ethical and responsible practices. It helps companies to promote transparency, fairness, and accountability, especially when it comes to privacy and security. In this way, we have assurance that businesses are treating their employees, customers, and stakeholders - and their data - fairly and responsibly. Additionally, compliance is a key aspect of risk management. Certain compliance programs help business leaders to identify and mitigate potential risks. Plus, enhancing the privacy of sensitive data and intellectual property, by implementing security measures, is just a smart business practice.
And speaking of smart business practice! For any businesses that have government contracts, compliance is particularly important for them. The reason being is, for these businesses that have government contracts, they would be required to adhere to compliance guidelines. Failure to do so would result in losing the contract that was in place with the federal government. For example, a financial institution not having all FTC Safeguards in place, would result in them not being able to file tax returns or be penalized by the IRS for not having security measures in place.
Generally speaking, paying proper attention to compliance supports proper and legal business function, risk management, and can even help with competitive advantage. Where should a company begin, though? Which certifications are most important?
If you need further assistance on determining whether you and your business are within compliance guidelines or ensuring you’re protected against today’s cybersecurity threats, give our experts a call. Let KRS IT fill in your security gap and monitor your IT infrastructure 24/7, allowing you to work with confidence at all tim