4 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Approach to IT Security Compliance
In today’s business world, digital communication and data storage are the norm. Important client information passes between hands on a routine basis, and strict digital compliance laws are in place to ensure that the privacy of each of these customers is protected. Failure to comply with these requirements can have severe negative consequences on your company and your relationship with your clients. That’s why it’s important to improve the way you and your staff approach IT compliance in terms of handling client data.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to improving compliance across your enterprise. It will take a comprehensive shift in policy and execution to turn the ship around. Thankfully, it won’t take long for a company to head in the right direction once compliance receives as much attention from your staff as it deserves.
1. Ensure team buy-in before deploying new solutions
You can invest in high-end software or request the assistance of a first-rate consultant, but these investments are meaningless if employees refuse to recognize the importance of compliance. Even a single mistake by an employee can result in a serious compliance error, according to CIO. As a result, attempting to resolve the company’s privacy and security issues without full buy-in from your employees is a poor use of resources. Whether by group training or one-on-one training sessions, it’s integral that every employee understand the ripple effect that a single compliance failure could have for the entire company. Failure to do so could lead not only to further compliance problems but also to budgetary wastes if compliance solutions stall due to lack of employee engagement.
2. Turn audit preparation into a priority
Despite the fact that a single surprise visit from an auditor could have a major impact on the long-term success of the company, many offices in possession of private customer data don’t even have an audit preparation strategy. Others treat auditor visits like a nuisance or a necessary evil to skirt around whenever possible. Unfortunately, this lax attitude contributes to the very vulnerabilities and gross oversights that lead to major breaches and compliance violations. Spending a training session to refocus your team on compliance and audit preparation will serve the entire company in the long run.
3. Keep data onsite and out of the cloud
Companies currently managing offline IT assets like storage tape often wonder about the potential perks of moving their data off site and into the cloud. However, with the perks of this Internet-based storage solution comes a slew of new compliance woes. Forbes pointed out that the relationship between cloud storage and IT security is quite complex. For instance, data compliance depends on verifying data’s location and who has had access to that information. Controlling these factors is significantly more difficult once this information has gone live, and this reality has led many companies to keep their storage operations onsite. Total storage capacity available via tape continues to grow in size each year, so you won’t have to worry about switching to the cloud anytime soon.
4. Use software tools to manage offline IT assets
There’s no need to depend on your IT staff to have all the answers when it comes to compliance. In fact, relying on them too heavily to make improvements to the process could actually set your compliance strategy back in the long run. Instead, consider deploying targeted IT asset management tools like AssetAware. Ramping up compliance efforts with dedicated software streamlines your company’s offline IT asset management process, simplifies the production of defensible reports for auditors and demonstrates to employees how serious the company is about prioritizing compliance more heavily.