5 Steps To Achieve Cybersecurity Compliance

The proliferation of cyber threats means that any business with an online presence is always at risk of a security breach. Old or lack of cybersecurity measures increases your network’s risk. Therefore, it’s best to take the necessary steps to protect your network from data loss. 

Following provisions of industry regulations ensures you achieve the necessary cybersecurity compliance. For instance, rules under Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards can help ensure your online payment services are secure. Your local IT experts can also advise you on current and emerging cybersecurity trends you may want to adopt. This ensures the safety of your network. In addition, you get to maintain a good reputation among your business partners if they’re assured you take measures to prevent future cyber threats. 

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Accomplishing cybersecurity objectives isn’t a one-time, one-person undertaking. It requires several measures and team effort. The following are some steps you can adopt to achieve the necessary cybersecurity compliance: 

1. Develop And Conduct A Robust Risk Assessment Plan

Your network can have weak points that expose data to cyberattacks. Therefore, you must know the tools and protocols to implement to minimize your threat level. A risk assessment exercise can help you determine this. 

A risk assessment identifies potential weaknesses in your network and analyzes the risk level of each weak point. It also helps recommend possible steps to improve its cybersecurity level. 

For example, a risk assessment process might find that end-point devices are your high-risk areas. This means users expose their device, and the network in general, to possible cyber-attacks. The assessment can recommend cybersecurity training for the team. Additionally, it can recommend the implementation of multifactor authentication and other end-point security tools. These recommendations ensure that you close potential loopholes that can expose your network to a data breach. 

2. Implement Network Access Controls

If it’s easy for your team to access your network from other devices or locations, it’s also easy for cybercriminals to hack into it. Thus, take measures before this happens. 

You may start by creating different access levels. This way, only authorized users can access the required data. Restricted access levels also ensure fewer users can access sensitive information, so the threat level for such data becomes low. 

Another access control you can also implement is the use of strong passwords. Your admin can set the system to accept a predetermined set of characters. For instance, you can have an application take a password with a minimum of 12 characters. Likewise, the password should have a special character, a mix of lower and uppercase letters, and at least two numbers. This ensures that users don’t go the easy way and input short, easy-to-remember passwords like birthdays and pet names. 

Multifactor authentication is also crucial in ensuring authorized access to your network. You can develop a one-time pin (OTP) or use biometric identification as the second factor necessary for account access. This helps ensure that the users are who they say they are. 

It would be best to implement data encryption measures. With this, your data get an extra layer of security to deter potential cyber-attacks. Existing provisions under general data protection regulation make this automatic. However, you must also ensure that your emails have a data encryption protocol. This way, the risk of data loss is minimal for intercepted emails. 

3.  Update Your Cybersecurity Policies

A successful risk assessment exercise should help you update your cybersecurity compliance policies. You can also use results from the process to formulate new ones. 

Suppose your current cybersecurity policies may not provide adequate guidelines on devices used by your team members. So, you may need to develop necessary device protocols after risk assessment. A ‘bring-your-device-to-work’ can be one of these parameters. Such a protocol can outline restrictions on using personal devices for work accounts and vice versa. 

Moreover, you can streamline your policies to provide guidelines on software and hardware updates and incident response procedures. You can also indicate your network access controls, vendor risk management, and data backup plans. 

Clear and concise policies can help you effectively implement them among the team. They can also ensure you pass industry compliance audits. However, having regular policy updates to keep up with cyber threats is vital. To know what your policies lack, check out here

4. Monitor And Respond To Threats Continuously

Cybersecurity compliance requires your network to adapt to the changing threat environment. Otherwise, you might find that the network protection you had yesterday isn’t practical today, so you need constant monitoring for potential threat intrusion. 

In most cases, you may get the services of a managed services provider. However, if you have an able in-house team, you can execute this exercise internally. It’s worth noting that cyber threats can strike at any time. Therefore, you should have a round-the-clock system monitoring and response team. 

5. Conduct Cybersecurity Awareness Training

A good cybersecurity compliance plan may not be sufficient if your team isn’t aware of the necessary protocols. Hence, once you have your policies in place, you should carry out awareness training for the team. This ensures you can adequately implement the policies without significant setbacks. 

Furthermore, cybersecurity awareness training can help educate and inform the team on such cyber threats as phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks. 

Conclusion

Cybersecurity compliance is essential to protecting your network. However, it would be best to undertake several procedures to ensure you achieve it. The steps discussed in this article can help you reach this objective and consistently maintain your compliance status.

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