The Ultimate Guide to IT Compliance

Introduction

Cyber risks are very real and growing rapidly. With the average cost of a data breach reaching an all-time high at $4.35 million per breach in 2022, organizations and vendors place more stringent requirements to comply with regulations to ensure system integrity – making compliance more relevant than ever.

IT compliance is an important part of any organization's IT strategy. At the same time, it is also important to strike a balance between compliance and other priorities such as cost, efficiency, and user experience – therefore, making a sound IT compliance management program critical.

In this article, we will provide a detailed overview of IT compliance, including some of the widely used IT regulations and standards, the benefits of a robust IT compliance management program, and more.

Key Takeaways

• Organizations must implement a sound IT compliance program that streamlines processes, eliminates duplication and redundancies, and enhances efficiency and productivity.
• The program includes policies and procedures that must be followed to maintain compliance. It also includes regular monitoring and auditing to ensure that the policies and procedures are relevant, effective, and being followed.
• Some of the widely used IT regulations and standards include ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC, CCPA, CMMC, NIST SP 800-53, and NIST CSF.
• Automated IT compliance uses software solutions to eliminate manual processes, such as collecting information and storing it in a database, establishing relationships between regulations and corporate policies, controls, IT assets, etc., generating reports, testing and monitoring of controls, etc. 

What is IT Compliance?

IT compliance is the process of ensuring that an organization is adhering to relevant IT and cyber laws, regulations, and policies. IT compliance includes measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and systems. It is the process of making sure that an organization's information technology (IT) practices and products comply with internal policies, external regulations, and industry standards.

A number of factors drive organizations to strengthen compliance, but the most common is to avoid penalties or legal action that could result from non-compliance. In some cases, compliance may also be required in order to maintain certifications or licenses.

What are IT Regulations and Standards?

IT regulations and standards are the rules that govern how an organization’s IT systems are used. These regulations can be very specific, or they can be broad in scope. They're often defined by governmental agencies, standard-setting bodies, and trade groups.

There are many different types of IT regulations and standards that companies may have to abide by depending on the industry in which they operate. Here are some examples:

Healthcare: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulates how healthcare providers interact with electronic health records, as well as the security of those electronic records.

Financial Services: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) sets the rules for storing customer information for financial institutions such as banks or credit unions.

Important IT Regulations and Standards

Here’s a look at some of the most widely used IT and cyber compliance regulations:

• ISO 27001

  ISO 27001 is an international standard that sets out the requirements for an information security management system (ISMS). ISMS includes the entire gamut of policies and processes that help organizations to manage their information security risks. It includes all aspects of information security, from physical security to cyber security.

  ISO 27001 certified organizations are those that have successfully demonstrated that they have implemented an effective ISMS and that they are committed to continuously improving their information security. While ISO 27001 certification is voluntary, many organizations choose to do so to show their commitment to information security and to demonstrate to customers and other stakeholders that they have robust security controls in place.

• PCI DSS

  PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It is a collated list of security standards designed to protect sensitive credit and debit card information from being compromised. PCI DSS is administered by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a group of major credit card issuers including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.

  PCI DSS compliance is required for all businesses that accept credit or debit card payments, regardless of size or industry. Failure to comply with PCI DSS can result in hefty fines from credit card issuers, as well as the loss of the ability to accept credit card payments.

  PCI DSS includes a number of requirements for how sensitive credit and debit card data must be protected, including requirements for firewalls, encryption, and access control. PCI DSS also requires businesses to maintain detailed security logs and to undergo regular security audits.

• HIPAA

  HIPAA compliance refers to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which is a set of regulations designed to protect the privacy and security of patient health information. HIPAA compliance is required for any organization that handles protected health information (PHI), and failure to comply can result in heavy fines and other penalties.

• SOC 2

  Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) framework, published by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), aims to help organizations prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. SOC 2 reports evaluate the effectiveness of an organization's controls over five Trust Services Criteria— availability, confidentiality, security, privacy, and processing integrity.
  
  SOC 2 is a voluntary security attestation. In order to become SOC compliant, an organization must undergo a third-party audit in which they are evaluated against a set of criteria designed to ensure that they have implemented the necessary controls, policies, and procedures. If the organization passes this audit, it receives certification from an independent auditor that confirms its SOC compliance. It can use the SOC 2 report to demonstrate its robust control environment to third parties.
   

• CMMC

  Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is a comprehensive process that helps organizations -- contractors, subcontractors, and vendors of the US Department of Defense (DoD) --improve their cybersecurity systems. It helps organizations to determine how mature their cybersecurity capabilities are and how they can improve them. It also helps them identify gaps in their current set-up and provides recommendations for improvement. The goal of CMMC is to help organizations identify and close vulnerabilities in their information security systems.

• CCPA

  The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a data privacy law that went into effect on January 1, 2020. It requires businesses to disclose how they collect and use consumer data, as well as provide consumers with the ability to opt out of having their data collected and sold.
  
  In order to comply with the CCPA, companies need to collect consumer consent for their data collection practices. They will also need to be transparent about those practices by providing consumers with information about what information is being collected, why it's being collected, and who will have access to it.
  
  The CCPA also requires that businesses provide consumers with an opt-out option at any time during the duration of their relationship with the business—which means that if someone asks a company to stop collecting their data or selling it off for marketing purposes, they must honor that request.
   

• NIST 

  The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was created in 1901 to develop and publish measurement standards, and they have been doing so ever since. In 2006, NIST published its first standard on information security. Since then, they have published more standards and frameworks, including:

  • FIPS 200 - Standards for Personal Identity Verification, which includes guidelines for validating identity credentials based on biometrics such as fingerprints or facial recognition.
  • SP 800-53 - Recommended security controls for federal information systems, which contains guidance on how to implement a risk-based approach to security management based on the level of impact each control has on protecting against unauthorized access.
  • SP 800-171 - Technical guide to understanding common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE), which contains a list of common vulnerabilities in software applications that can be exploited by hackers.
  • NIST Cybersecurity Framework - A voluntary framework that guides organizations to effectively manage and mitigate cybersecurity risks.

How do I Design and Implement an IT Compliance Program?

An effective IT and cyber compliance program helps ensure that an organization meets all the IT regulatory requirements relevant to its business. The design of an IT compliance program depends on the specific compliance requirements that must be met. However, in general, a compliance program should include policies and procedures for ensuring that cyber risks are effectively identified and managed, as well as mechanisms for monitoring compliance and reporting any non-compliance.

The steps involved in designing an IT and cyber compliance program will vary depending on the specific industry and regulatory requirements that need to be met. 

Here are some general steps that may need to be taken to design an effective program:
1.    Establish and document organizational objectives for the IT and cyber compliance program
2.    Identify and record all relevant IT regulations, standards, and frameworks
3.    Develop associated policies and procedures, including measures and metrics to determine if the IT compliance program objectives are being met
4.    Identify related controls required to achieve compliance
5.    Test controls to evaluate their design and operational effectiveness
6.    Address any control gap or weakness identified during the testing process
7.    Monitor the IT regulatory horizon to identify new regulations and regulatory updates
8.    Monitor compliance with the policies and procedures by regularly testing controls
9.    Regularly review and update the program as needed.

IT Compliance Management Best Practices

The traditional approach to IT compliance involves the use of a manual approach and tools. It is not only time and cost-intensive but also prone to errors. Organizations need to adopt a tech-driven approach to IT compliance to overcome these challenges.

In recent years, organizations have been increasingly implementing software solutions for managing IT compliance processes. Here are some of the best practices that organizations should ensure while deploying a technology-based IT compliance management solution:
 

1. Centralized Repository:

Establishing a centralized repository for capturing the organization’s complete IT and cyber compliance hierarchy, including risks, controls, assets, processes, and audits, is essential to adopt and implement an automated approach to IT compliance management. This centralized library helps define the relationships between controls to regulatory requirements, policies, risks, and other elements via many-to-many mappings, thereby providing a 360-degree visibility into the overall IT compliance status and serving as the single source of truth.

2. Harmonization of Controls:

With organizations required to comply with multiple regulations and standards, it could inevitably result in duplicate and redundant controls. Standardizing and harmonizing control sets across regulatory requirements, which can be conflicting or even overlapping, is crucial to eliminate duplicate and redundant controls, and streamline the overall control environment. It also helps organizations improve efficiency in control testing by ‘testing once and complying many times.

3. Continuous Control Monitoring:

The traditional approach of conducting sample-based, sporadic control testing is no longer effective for organizations to stay on top of the fast-changing IT and cyber risk and regulatory landscape. Today, organizations must test controls automatically and continuously to proactively identify and mitigate any control gap or weakness to ensure error-free compliance.

4. Automated Regulatory Horizon Scanning:

With the dizzying number of new regulations and regulatory updates being issued around the world, organizations need tools that can help them stay ahead of the curve. Software solutions that automate regulatory horizon scanning is an absolute must in today’s rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. These tools scan the regulatory landscape, capture new regulations and updates, and generate automated alerts to relevant personnel for immediate action.

5. Optimized Control Environment with AI:

Advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), can greatly help organizations streamline and optimize their control environment. An AI-powered system can provide actionable insights such as patterns of over and under-testing of controls, duplicate, orphan, and redundant controls, control gaps, prioritization of control testing, and much more.

What are the Benefits of IT and Cyber Compliance?

There are many benefits to implementing IT and cyber compliance measures within an organization. Perhaps the most obvious benefit is ensuring that the organization is operating in compliance with established laws, regulations, and standards. Establishing strong IT controls as per regulatory requirements can help to protect the organization's data and systems from being compromised by external threats.

In addition, compliance with IT standards can help to ensure that the organization's systems can withstand attacks and continue to function properly. This can help minimize the impact of an attack on the organization and its customers.

Finally, complying with IT regulations can also help to build trust with customers and other stakeholders, as they will see that the organization is taking measures to protect its data.

Here are some of the key benefits of a sound IT and cyber compliance program:

1. Improved Compliance Posture:

A robust IT compliance program can help organizations track their progress in meeting IT regulations and security standards and proactively identify and address areas where they need to improve.

2. Improved Security:

By adhering to compliance standards, organizations can improve their overall security posture and reduce their risk of being breached. It improves organizational cyber resilience in the event of a breach and enhances its ability to detect and respond to threats.

It is important to note here that compliance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for security. An organization can be compliant with all relevant laws and regulations but still be vulnerable to attack if its IT security is not up to par.

3. Better Accountability:

A comprehensive IT compliance program clearly defines roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities for various activities such as control testing and monitoring, issue and action management, program review, etc. This clarity helps in segregating compliance duties and tasks, thereby streamlining the entire IT compliance function.

4. Cost Savings:

Compliance can help organizations save money by reducing the need for duplicate and redundant controls and reducing the likelihood of costly fines and penalties. When supported with a technology-based software solution, it can further amplify cost and effort savings, thereby creating bandwidth for compliance teams to focus on other priority areas.

5. Stakeholder Trust:

Organizations that are compliant with security standards are often seen as being more trustworthy and reliable. This can help attract new customers and business partners. It ensures greater confidence for customers that their data is safe as well as regulators.
 

How MetricStream IT and Cyber Compliance Can Help

MetricStream IT and Cyber Compliance Management helps organizations streamline their IT compliance processes with a common taxonomy, centralized control library, and well-defined workflows. Built-in regulatory content enables organizations to get their IT compliance program up and running in no time, thereby managing and monitoring compliance across multiple IT regulations and standards effectively and efficiently. Continuous control monitoring, AI-powered issue and action management, and integration with AWS Audit Manager provide actionable insights that help strengthen the IT compliance function.

To learn more about MetricStream IT and Cyber Compliance Management, request a personalized demo today.

FAQ

• How is IT compliance different from IT security?

  IT compliance and IT security are two separate but important concepts in the world of information technology. IT compliance refers to the process of ensuring that an organization's IT infrastructure is compliant with all relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards. On the other hand, IT security is the process of protecting an organization's IT infrastructure from unauthorized access or theft.

• What are the key considerations for organizations before they design an IT compliance program?

  Here is an ideal checklist that must be considered before designing an IT compliance program:

• Access and Identity Control: Systems must be able to control access to data, including who has access and whether they can change it.
• Control Over Data Sharing: Data should only be shared with authorized users and with explicit consent from the organization.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): This is designed to prevent unauthorized access and sharing of sensitive data with third parties by implementing policies related to when and where it should be shared with others.
• Malware Protection: Malware protection helps keep computers safe from viruses and other harmful software by scanning them regularly for any threats before they enter your network system through email attachments or downloads from unsecured sites on the web.
• Incident Response Team: A team will need to be trained in how to respond to incidents such as data breaches or malware attacks.
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: An IT compliance program needs a disaster recovery plan in place so that if something happens to the main system, there is a backup plan in place and operations are not disrupted.

What are the benefits of an IT compliance software solution?

Here are some of the key benefits of IT compliance software solutions:

• Improved overall IT risk and compliance posture with automated assessment and enforcement of compliance controls.
• Accelerated process of compliance testing and audits, as well as reduced costs associated with these activities.
• Better accuracy of compliance testing and audits, as well as reduced number of false positives that can occur.
• Enhanced efficiency of compliance testing and audits by reducing the need for manual intervention.
• Deeper visibility of compliance risks and issues by providing a centralized view of compliance data.