Cybersecurity compliance is a process that encompasses the policies, procedures, and adherence to regulatory standards designed to safeguard an organization’s digital assets and infrastructure from external threats. It is a critical aspect of modern digital defense strategies, notably external attack surface management (EASM).
EASM assists organizations in achieving and maintaining cybersecurity compliance or simply security compliance by combining attack surface discovery, vulnerability prioritization, vulnerability remediation, and continuous monitoring. Each of these steps play an important role in helping organizations achieve and maintain compliance with specific regulatory requirements and industry standards.
Table of Contents
- What Are the Components of Cybersecurity Compliance?
- Why Is Cybersecurity Compliance Important?
- Key Compliance Frameworks and Regulations
- Types of Data Subject to Cybersecurity Compliance
- How to Build a Cybersecurity Compliance Plan
- Challenges in Cybersecurity Compliance
- Best Practices in Maintaining Cybersecurity Compliance
Cybersecurity Compliance: A Deep Dive
What Are the Components of Cybersecurity Compliance?
Cybersecurity compliance entails a comprehensive approach to ensuring that an organization’s digital infrastructure is aligned with regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal policies that aim to protect against external threats.
The key measures organizations should take to ensure security compliance include:
- Legal and industry standards compliance
- Vulnerability management and risk assessment
- Security control implementation
- Incident response planning
- Regular internal and external audits
- Employee training
We’ll explore each of these components below.
Legal and Industry Standard Compliance
Organizations must understand and comply with applicable laws and regulations governing data protection and cybersecurity like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Since these regulations constantly evolve, it is important to stay informed about changes.
Organizations also need to adhere to industry-specific standards and frameworks for cybersecurity best practices, such as the ISO/IEC 27001. While these standards may not be legally binding, noncompliance can still result in serious consequences, including loss of customer trust, reputational damage, and competitive disadvantage.
Vulnerability Management and Risk Assessment
Several cybersecurity regulations and standards require organizations to conduct regular risk assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities and threats to their security posture. This makes vulnerability management and risk assessment crucial aspects of cybersecurity compliance.
That said, an organization’s compliance strategy typically involves regular vulnerability scans and penetration testing, as well as risk prioritization, where identified issues are ranked and addressed based on their exploitability and severity.
Security Control Implementation
A significant part of compliance relies on implementing a range of security controls, including strong access control measures, such as multifactor authentication (MFA) and regular password resets. These internal controls aim to restrict unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Technical controls are also important, which involves using network firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDSs), and antivirus software to protect against external attacks.
Incident Response Planning
Incident response planning is a compliance requirement of many regulations. For example, annex 16 of the ISO/IEC 27001, an international standard for managing information security, requires organizations to develop and implement a robust incident response plan.
Other standards like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) have similar requirements.
Employee Training
Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) revealed that 68% of breaches were caused by human error. As such, conducting training programs to educate employees about security best practices and raise awareness about the importance of safeguarding against external attacks is crucial to maintain regulatory compliance.
Employees need to understand how threat actors operate so they can recognize phishing attacks, social engineering tactics, and other malicious activities. Training should also emphasize the importance of strong password hygiene, secure data handling practices, and the proper use of company devices.
Auditing and Assessment
Auditing involves assessing security controls and policies to ensure they align with compliance requirements. It is a systematic review of an organization’s cybersecurity posture, essentially answering questions like:
- Are you meeting compliance requirements?
- What are your current security gaps?
- How effective are your existing security controls?
- Are your incident response procedures adequate?
- Are your employees adequately trained and aware of cybersecurity risks?
Audits and assessments provide organizations with a clear picture of the effectiveness of their security policies, making the processes crucial components of cybersecurity compliance.
Why Is Cybersecurity Compliance Important?
Complying with industry regulations is essential for organizations across all industries for many reasons, including those below.
It Builds Trust
Regulatory compliance ensures that an organization has implemented the necessary security measures to protect sensitive information, critical systems, and business operations from cyber threats. This effort demonstrates its commitment to data security, helping increase customer loyalty and build stronger brand reputation as customers are more likely to do business with organizations they perceive as trustworthy and responsible with their data.
It Strengthens Your Cyber Defenses
Cybersecurity compliance leads to improved security posture as it requires organizations to implement rigorous security controls and measures. It prompts businesses to be proactive in their vulnerability identification, attack surface management, and other security processes.
It Minimizes Financial Risks
Noncompliance with regulations, such as the GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can result in significant financial penalties that range from thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the violation and volume of data affected.
For example, the GDPR imposes fines of up to €20 million or 4% of an organization’s global annual turnover, whichever is higher. Such financial losses can severely impact businesses’ financial health, potentially crippling small businesses and damaging the bottom line of large enterprises.
Key Compliance Frameworks and Regulations
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
The HIPAA mandates healthcare providers and other entities in the healthcare industry to protect sensitive patient health information (PHI). It sets strict rules for the use, disclosure, and security of PHI.
Covered entities are required to implement cybersecurity processes and measures, such as vulnerability management, risk assessment, access control, and data encryption. Noncompliance can result in significant legal consequences, including civil and criminal penalties and fines of up to US$50,000 per violation, with higher fines for willful neglect.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
PCI DSS covers all entities that store, process, and transmit cardholder data, regardless of type—credit card, debit card, or prepaid card. It requires robust security controls, such as implementing strong access controls, encrypting card data, and conducting regular vulnerability scans.
Noncompliance can result in monetary fines amounting to thousands of dollars. Target, for example, paid US$18.5 million in settlement fees for legal actions resulting from PCI DSS noncompliance.
General Data Protection Regulation
The GDPR is a data protection law that applies to organizations processing the data of individuals residing in the European Union (EU), regardless of an organization’s location. Among its key requirements are:
- Obtaining explicit user consent for data processing
- Ensuring data accuracy while minimizing data collection
- Giving users control over their personal data
- Implementing high-standard security measures
ISO/IEC 27001
While not a legal requirement, ISO/IEC 27001 is an internationally recognized standard for information security management systems (ISMSs). To comply with this cybersecurity standard, organizations must implement a comprehensive set of information security controls, incident response procedures, and regular security audits.
Types of Data Subject to Cybersecurity Compliance
Cybersecurity laws and regulations aim to protect sensitive information but what exactly does this data refer to? It can be categorized into personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), and financial data. However, it’s important to note that some of the data can overlap across these categories, as you will discover in the succeeding sections.
Personally Identifiable Information
PII refers to any data that leads to the identification of an individual, whether directly or indirectly.
Direct identifiers include a person’s name, social security number, email address, and telephone number. On the other hand, indirect identifiers refers to any piece of information that identifies an individual when combined with other data points. Examples include gender, race, date of birth, and geographical address.
Protected Health Information
PHI refers to any data within a medical record that can be used to determine a person’s identity. It is typically generated when the person avails of healthcare services. A piece of health information by itself does not automatically qualify as PHI unless it comes with any of 18 identifiers. Some examples of these identifiers include the following patient details:
- Name
- Address
- Specific dates
- Phone and fax numbers
- Email address
- Social security number
- Medical record number
- Account number
- Biometrics
- IP address
Financial Data
Financial information refers to any data related to a person’s financial accounts or status that, if compromised, can result in significant damage. This includes any PII mentioned above and financial account details, such as:
- Bank account numbers
- Credit card details
- Loan account details
- Insurance policy numbers
- Credit history
How to Build a Cybersecurity Compliance Plan
A cybersecurity compliance plan is a structured approach organizations develop to ensure their information systems and data handling practices meet regulatory requirements, industry standards, and cybersecurity best practices.
Here are some notable steps in building a cybersecurity compliance plan.
1. Determine Your Compliance Requirements
Identify the applicable laws, regulations, and industry standards that govern your organization’s operations. This is a foundational step that enables you to create a tailored compliance program to address specific requirements.
2. Assemble a Compliance Team
Compliance teams are ideally cross-functional, comprising representatives from the IT, HR, legal, finance, and other departments, each with defined roles and responsibilities. A compliance officer is also appointed. This person supervises the overall compliance program.
3. Conducting Risk Assessments
The next step is to identify potential vulnerabilities, threats, and risks to your organization’s information assets, specifically those holding sensitive information and are responsible for critical processes. Leveraging an EASM platform can streamline this process by providing complete visibility into your external attack surface, enabling rapid identification of potential risks and vulnerabilities.
4. Implement Security Controls
Implement controls that mitigate the risks identified and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, including the following:
- Technical controls: Firewalls, antivirus software, and other security technologies.
- Administrative controls: MFA and least privilege access.
- Physical controls: Securing physical access to data centers, server rooms, and other critical infrastructure.
5. Formulate Policies and Procedures
Develop comprehensive cybersecurity policies and procedures that address the specific requirements outlined in the regulatory frameworks you identified.
6. Monitor
Implement mechanisms for continuous monitoring of systems, networks, and data to detect and respond to security incidents in a timely manner. Built-in EASM capabilities can help optimize this process, enabling automated and continuous asset discovery and vulnerability detection.
Conduct regular audits and reviews of cybersecurity controls and processes to ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory requirements and industry standards.
Challenges in Cybersecurity Compliance
Complying with cybersecurity regulations is not easy. In fact, it is among the top challenges of security operations centers (SOCs). Organizations commonly struggle with resource allocation, managing costs, and staying up-to-date with modern threats.
Allocating Human Resources
Organizations often struggle to allocate sufficient resources to cybersecurity compliance processes, primarily since there is a global shortage in cybersecurity personnel. This issue can lead to inefficiency in implementing security controls and, ultimately, the risk of noncompliance.
Managing Costs
Implementing an effective cybersecurity compliance program requires significant financial investment, which covers purchasing and maintaining security technologies, hiring skilled professionals, conducting pentesting and audits, and many other activities.
This investment competes with other business priorities for budgets, making it difficult to secure funding.
Keeping Up with Evolving Threats
Cyber threats constantly evolve, with malicious actors always coming up with new and more sophisticated attacks every day. Organizations often find themselves struggling to keep pace.
Best Practices in Maintaining Cybersecurity Compliance
Despite the challenges in maintaining compliance, many organizations find that the key to avoiding compliance violations is to observe a proactive approach. We’ll cover some of the most common ones below.
Continuous Monitoring
Implement mechanisms for the continuous monitoring of systems, networks, and data to detect and respond to security incidents in a timely manner. Built-in EASM capabilities can help optimize this process, enabling automated and continuous asset discovery and vulnerability detection.
Employee Cybersecurity Training
Educate employees about cybersecurity best practices, your organization’s policies and procedures, and their roles and responsibilities in maintaining compliance.
Document Compliance Activities
Maintain detailed documentation of cybersecurity compliance efforts, including policies, procedures, cyber risk assessments, audit reports, incident response logs, and others.
Prioritize Threats
Determine which cyber threats are the most relevant and pose the greatest risk to your organization and address them first. The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), the Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), and other vulnerability scoring methods come in handy for this.
Data Encryption
Encrypt sensitive data both in transit and at rest and maintain regular and secure backups of critical data to enable quick recovery in case of a breach.
Key Takeaways
- Cybersecurity compliance is a process that encompasses the policies, procedures, and adherence to regulatory standards designed to safeguard an organization’s digital assets and infrastructure from external threats.
- Security compliance in the context of EASM requires organizations to adopt a proactive approach to identify, assess, and mitigate risks that exposed assets and external threats pose.
- Building a compliance plan is critical to achieving security compliance.
- The GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO/IEC 27001 are among the most common cybersecurity compliance standards and regulations organizations across industries adhere to.
- Sensitive data can be categorized into PII, PHI, and financial information.
- Best practices in maintaining regulatory compliance include employee training, continuous monitoring, documentation, threat prioritization, and data encryption.
- Some of the challenges in maintaining cybersecurity compliance are resource allocation and rapid threat evolution.
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