How to Develop Your Compliance Program

When it comes to compliance, a one-size-fits-all solution for business organizations doesn’t exist. Due to this lack of uniformity, developing a compliance program can be a little tricky. However, there are some simple measures you can take to help you establish a successful compliance program. Remember, compliance isn’t just about adhering to a set of guidelines. Staying compliant helps you secure your company against unforeseen threats and the risks associated with fines and penalties.

Let’s discuss the framework you need to follow to ensure successful compliance.

Download our compliance checklist for a quick overview of compliance needs.

Simple Measures to Protect Your Business and Employees

Since compliance is all about protecting your business against various risks, you can start with these simple measures on your road to building a successful compliance program.

• Provide a dedicated work laptop: Unsecure devices are one of the easiest ways for cybercriminals to gain access to a network. While a BYOD (bring your own device) policy is a great way for organizations to save money, it leaves their IT networks exposed to various risks. Providing a dedicated laptop significantly minimizes this risk and helps secure all end users.
• Evaluate your internal teams: Your internal teams must be evaluated periodically without fail. Insider threats have increased 47% between 2018 and 2020, and are hard to detect unless you review your internal teams. Always make sure everyone in your organization is following the same security and compliance guidelines. By establishing a formal internal review program, you can minimize overall threats from your internal teams.
• Review technology gaps: One important way to stay on top of security threats is by keeping up with the technological changes in the IT industry. Outdated hardware and software solutions provide easy access for cybercriminals, and they must be updated periodically. Make sure you review your hardware, software and cloud solution periodically, and update any gaps when required.

Developing a Compliance Program

The first step in developing a compliance program is to use internal data to transform your internal security measures from reactive to proactive. This involves incorporating the necessary access controls to ensure only the right people have access to critical data. Also, incorporating measures like a two-step verification program can help you minimize the possibility of security incidents.

It is also wise to conduct a risk assessment when incorporating a compliance program. Since compliance is all about mitigating risks, this risk assessment should help you figure out the potential risks faced by the company. When performing risk assessments, it is important to identify all the potential risks surrounding an organization, determine their level of severity and come up with flexible measures that allow for evaluation of all risks.

When considering other measures, you need to look at the specific regulations and data laws that apply to you. This will give you a framework for the security measures you need to incorporate. You need to develop your IT policies based on this framework and establish them across the organization.

Companies that have a global presence with customers in multiple countries need to incorporate the highest level of policy awareness. This provides them with an edge when conducting international businesses as they have to comply with multiple regulatory policies. It is better to look for a common denominator in multiple policies, follow the strictest regulation and then incorporate it widely across the organizations. This provides better security and ensures adherence to various data laws.

Even if you don’t operate abroad, it is better to examine different regulatory policies and achieve at least a minimum level of compliance in everything. This helps you stay ahead of the compliance curve and ensure better data security.

Commitment to Compliance

While establishing a compliance program might seem like a daunting task, you can figure out the nuances once you get the ball rolling. The steps discussed here can be used as a framework for coming up with a compliance program. However, it is subject to change based on your unique needs. Remember, establishing a compliance program requires complete commitment to be successful.

How IT Glue Can Help

As a leading cloud-based software company, we understand the importance of information security. IT Glue helps secure your world with our SOC 2-compliant documentation platform that features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine, all of which are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To see how IT Glue adds an additional layer of security to your compliance program, request a demo.

Check out our “Quick Start Guide to Data Privacy and Compliance” eBook for an overview of the steps needed to ensure your business adheres to data privacy compliance policies.

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