How do you deal with compliance?
Or better yet, let me ask you this: Should you keep compliance in-house (and assign it to someone on your team) or should you outsource it to someone who specifically works in compliance?
These are not easy questions to answer, but we both know they absolutely need to be answered. I wish I could give you a clear, direct response. I can’t. What I can do, however, is help you think about this issue in a way that brings clarity for your specific business.
First, let’s think about some important points:
- Security compliance programs can have a ton of implications on how your business is run,
- It’s important to understand how you might want your program to be set up and maintained to not only comply to your industry’s regulations, but also to follow consistent business processes throughout your organization.
- Your compliance program will certainly influence the way you handle and secure your data.
- Regardless of industry, type of compliance pressure, or size of your business, security compliance—and the controls that complement those rules of the road— ensures you are adequately protecting your network and data.
Second, I want to ask you three significant questions:
What Compliance Do You Have?
This is the most fundamental question. You need to know what regulations are you complying with because If you have specific compliance pressures in your industry, you will likely need someone knowledgeable of those specific demands to run an effective compliance program. The person you have on staff or as an outsourced resource will need to have intimate knowledge of that compliance. For very specialized fields, on staff compliance experts may be hard to recruit, engage and manage.
Where Do You Store Your Data?
Depending on where your data is stored, you may be able to transfer much of your security risks to other business associates. If you are able to find data storage solutions that comply to the pressures you are subjected to, you may be able to easily manage your security program without needing niche expertise.
Do You Have Talented And Passionate Folks On Your Team?
Do you have someone on your team who is passionate about compliance rules? Do they understand your compliance needs and do they have the capacity to run your compliance program? Finding someone who has acute knowledge AND is passionate about that knowledge base is rare in any position. If you do have this type of talent, you may be better off relying on them to spearhead your program. However, keep in mind that often these unicorns are hard to find which makes keeping compliance exclusively in-house difficult.
Moving Forward
As security becomes more critical to your business, many of the compliance frameworks and the security policies associated with those programs may become more complicated. The rules within a specific compliance pressure might not keep up to ever-evolving threats faced by your business. At times they also may be murky because technology innovation within businesses may change at a faster pace. For example, ChatGPT (a popular topic recently) is not explicitly defined in most compliance frameworks, even though your users may be using AI-based platforms to get some of their work done.
You will need to have people on your team or outsourced that are able to understand your network, your business needs, your core business processes and needs.
- Your in-house expert will need to be more than simply acquainted with your compliance needs. They will need to maintain an intimate knowledge of the compliance needs and be able to apply that knowledge to how your business is run.
- If you outsource your security compliance, you can’t simply rely on an out-of-the-box one-size-fits-all solution. If your outsourced solution does not tailor your program to you, your team, your processes and culture, it is hardly worth your time to invest in a solution like this.
There is no one solution that will keep you safe, and even the best compliance programs are subject to mistakes and human error. That’s where third-party validation comes into play. The security controls you might define to keep everyone secure are better when they’re checked by an unbiased third party. You cannot proofread your own work, so why not use a simple solution: a third-party penetration test.
So, let me ask you something: With all the questions surrounding compliance, why open yourself up to even more, when you could take the win here and get a third-party assessment?
