As digitalization explodes across almost every aspect of life, so, too, does the opportunity for cybercrime. This isn’t only because nasty people who like to profit from their nastiness still exist. It’s because digital technology offers so many different kinds of tantalizing attack vectors that sometimes it’s just too easy. That’s why state and federal governments – as well as industry organizations and BigCorp., Inc. – are shifting their attention to cybersecurity compliance. And so should you.
Complying with cybersecurity regulations doesn’t just beef up security measures to keep you and your clients’ data and systems better protected. It makes you look good, too.
Cyber Crime: Still Nasty.
Cyber crime is not going away anytime soon. In their 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report, the fun people over at Verizon tell us:
- Business Email Compromise attacks have almost doubled.
- Breaches involving cryptocurrency have quadrupled.
- Ransomware is still holding steady at one-quarter of action attacks.
- Stolen credentials, phishing, and exploiting vulnerabilities (such as the semi-recent Log4j vulnerability) are the three primary modes of attack.
This makes for depressing reading, despite how easy that report is to read (kudos to Verizon writers!).
Cybersecurity Regulations: There Are Lots.
Despite how hard you try, you can’t get away from cybersecurity compliance requirements. Cyber security laws and requirements are everywhere. Federal and state governments, regulatory authorities, industry advocacy organizations, and private sector groups can all require and enforce compliance requirements. In fact, your customers can even set cybersecurity standards for you by requiring them as part of your contracts.
Small businesses who land a juicy contract with FatCorp., Inc. stop smiling when they realize their data security standards are too low and they need to do a ton of compliance work before they start the job. (Ahem, one of our specialisms is powering up small businesses and startups with compliance standards that the big contracts require. Just sayin’).
If you’re not yet convinced about the importance of cybersecurity compliance, let’s take a look at the five reasons why cybersecurity compliance is crucial for your business:
1. Helps You Avoid Fines and Other Costs
If you have a masochistic hankering for a “kick me when I’m down” experience, have a hacker steal your data, rob you blind, and turn your customers against you. And then you get to pay someone for it.
Sounds fun, right?
Failure to comply with the appropriate laws and regulations can do just that. If you want to avoid costly fines and penalties, you need to be mindful of the latest legislation. If not, you might be looking at:
- HIPAA: Up to $50,000 per violation, depending on which culpability tier you’ve landed in.
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): $2,500 to $7,500 per violation
- GDPR (EU): This could shake you down for 20 million euros or 4% of your global annual revenue.
For good measure, add to your “Boot Me When I’m Down” budget the possible expenses of attorney fees and litigation costs, skyrocketing insurance premiums, and the value of lost customers.
2. Builds Customer Trust and Brand Reputation
If a hacker gets you, it’s not just your business operations and finances that are under attack. It’s your reputation. A security incident or breach can irreparably damage customer trust in your brand. Why would anyone trust a company that can’t be trusted with their data? Recent research suggests that, if you’re lucky, your customers will be angry rather than afraid. Angry customers come back. Fearful customers abandon you and join your competition.
Also, got shareholders or angel investors? Not gonna lie; they won’t like it.
That’s the bad stuff over with. Let’s cheer up with some of the positive outcomes that can blossom when businesses actually get the importance of cybersecurity compliance: better business performance, reduced risks, and a better night’s sleep. Doesn’t that feel good?
3. Shuts Down Risk
Cyber criminals are lazy and love an easy target. Being compliant with data security frameworks makes you more difficult to hit. The security configurations, procedures, and practices you’ve worked hard to deploy reduce your attack vectors and close down vulnerabilities.
4. Supports Access Controls and Accountability
One of the key vulnerabilities for data breaches is access. Confining data accessibility only to people who need it to do their job slashes the risk of incidents or breaches by closing down vulnerability gaps. Access control is a key feature of a load of compliance regulations, and an effective IT security compliance system supports this.
It’ll allow only individuals with the right credentials to access secure systems and databases, and it’ll maintain an audit trail and accountability by recording interactions with the system.
5. Promotes Operational Benefits
Data security compliance regulations are frameworks for better business practices and performance. By complying, you’ll not just be shutting down the business impacts of breaches (e.g. business downtime, loss of customers, etc.), but you’ll have put in place practices that actively improve performance business-wide:
Operational Benefits of Data Security Compliance
Cost savings: Centralized control compliance mechanisms like mobile device management allow better oversight of licenses, user accounts, and devices. Re-use spare devices, track lost devices, close unused accounts that you’re still paying for, and pay only for the licenses you need – these are just a few cost savings.
Trust and Reputation: Having compliance accreditations like SOC 2 and PCI DSS gives you the credibility that customers are looking for.
Operational Efficiency: Compliance often leads to streamlining business processes, improved data management, and resource allocation.
Employee Productivity: Access control principles give employees what they need to do the job, no more, no less. System maintenance is more easily undertaken during downtime. App blocking prevents time-wasting. MDM allows your people to work more flexibly and how they prefer to work.
Recruitment: MDM’s automated onboarding capability speeds up the onboarding process, and its security features allow you to recruit from anywhere.
We Can’t Overstate The Importance of Cybersecurity Compliance. We’ve Tried, But We Can’t.
There are two things that annoy us about cyber attacks. One is that they keep evolving – jumping into brand-spanking-new vulnerabilities revealed by new technologies. Two is that hackers will keep trying because they’ll be rewarded even if only a teeny percentage of their attacks are successful. Understanding the importance of cybersecurity is the first step to staying unbreached, unfined, and unembarrassed. The second step is to actually do something about it. Want to talk cybersecurity? We’re all ears.
Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Contact us now – chatting about IT support and cybersecurity is our favorite thing to do!