Why security compliance is not bullshit

Security isn’t a trend, but a necessity. The amount of cyberattacks only increases. 560k new malware pieces are detected every day. And it costs businesses a lot of money and customers’ trust. For example, in 2022, the average cost of a data breach globally hit $4.35 million.

How to ensure that your product is protected? Security compliance will help you with it.

There is a set of standards created by a third party, like ISO or PCI SSC, that guides you in protecting your business. Meeting these standards means that various types of data and consumers’ rights to control and access their data are secured.

Antivirus won’t save you

If you don’t pay enough attention to your product security, you’re risking. Don’t think that cybercriminals aren’t interested in your business if it’s small or its data may seem useless. But you’re not alone in this way of thinking.

60% of small business owners don’t consider themselves a target for cybercriminals. That’s why they are popular cyberattack victims.

Large companies also have their reasons to care about security, since the bigger you are, the more damage cybercrime can cause.

So what to do?

Consider security assessments

They help you to understand the level of your business safety, to find weaknesses, and ways to eliminate them.

Assessments test your systems and processes for vulnerabilities and provide you with ways to lower the risk of cyberattacks. They are also useful because help to keep your systems and policies up to date.

It usually conducts every month or sometimes even every week. It is needed to make sure that your product is still in compliance with the security requirements established in the standards.

During the assessment, the specialists that test IT systems and networks, follow a standard pattern. First, they observe the system and its components to determine the requirements. Then they create an action plan and conduct vulnerability scans, penetration tests, and other methods to test the security level.

After that, an evaluation of the results comes into place. Based on it, developing a plan for increasing systems’ security. And a very important part — the report.

Report includes:

• the initial state of the system or network,
• methods that were used to determine potential problems and weaknesses,
• recommendations for eliminating found issues.

You can assess the product with your internal team or entrust it to a third party that specializes in it. The second option can cost you more, but in this case, you can be sure that the assessment will be competent and cover all your systems and processes.

What is a security audit, and why do you need it?

A security audit is a complex assessment of your system that measures its security compliance to an audit checklist of industry best practices, externally established standards, or federal regulations.

Audit discovers whether your system is corresponding to a set of internal or external criteria regulating data security. Internal criteria are about IT policies and procedures in your company. External criteria include federal regulations and standards set by ISO or NIST.

It is essential for developing risk assessment plans and mitigation strategies for businesses that work with sensitive and confidential data.

If you want to create a secure and reliable product, here are a few standards to explore:

• SOC 2 is a security framework that specifies how organizations should protect customer data from unauthorized access, security incidents, and other vulnerabilities.
• GDPR is a regulation in European law on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area.
• PCI DSS is a standard for collecting, transmitting, and storing users’ card payment information and sensitive data.

Compliance measures provide you with a set of clear frameworks, checklists, and best practices to make your business more secure.

If you want to ensure compliance of your product to standards actual for your industry — don’t hesitate to contact us.

Where to start?

Now you understand the importance of security compliance and assessments. But where to start your way to secured systems and processes?