Security Compliance Challenges: How to Meet Global Regulations

Ensuring cybersecurity compliance may seem burdensome (and a bit of a hassle), but neglecting it could jeopardize your business. For many teams and leaders, security compliance is typically associated with intricate and time-consuming processes. 

Organizations often perceive it as unavoidable to ensure client satisfaction and fend off cyber threats. You're dealing with hundreds of controls and numerous requirements imposed by various regulatory bodies.

What's more, if you operate globally, you have to face the additional and significant challenge of  adhering to many global and local regulations from varying regulators and jurisdictions across several geographies.

The challenge will only grow as the volumes, severity, and frequency of attacks increase, leading government entities and standards to make compliance requirements even more stringent.

What is Security Compliance? 

If you're a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), you're undoubtedly well-acquainted with the concept. In the fast-paced realm of security, subject to rapid changes, ensuring you're always on the right track is vital.

In a nutshell, security compliance means successfully implementing and following a security standard or framework. Standards like SOC 2 and  ISO 27001 provide controls, requirements, and guidelines to protect enterprises against cyberattacks and data breaches. By adhering to these standards, you can rest assured that you've implemented due diligence regarding information security, though achieving this is easier said than done.

Compliance in Today's Business Landscape

The significance of compliance in the current business environment is undeniable. Regarding different types of regulatory compliance, it's not just about adhering to the law—it extends beyond mere compliance language, encompassing regulatory security frameworks and additional security standards.

Whether your focus is on achieving or maintaining compliance with standards like HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI DSS, or  ISO 27001, they all share a common objective: safeguarding critical data in the face of an expanding threat landscape. In the unfortunate event of a data breach or cyberattack, adherence to your security framework serves as evidence of due diligence, often shielding your organization from severe fines, penalties, and, in certain instances, civil lawsuits.

From a perspective of business growth, compliance carries substantial weight. Clients are more willing to engage with organizations they trust, and maintaining a robust security posture has become a prerequisite for contemporary business practices. Expectations for cybersecurity practices among vendors are rising, with 44% of companies indicating that proof of cybersecurity is requested as part of a request for proposal (RFP).

The Essential Role of CISOs in Organizational Security Compliance

While security frameworks outline the dos and don'ts in more technical terms, an organization must comprehend, implement, and manage these controls. Each security compliance standard has requirements, controls, and audit processes, highlighting the need for a CISO.

The role of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in security compliance varies based on factors like industry, location, and the specific framework in use. Often, it involves overseeing multiple frameworks for different products and services. Despite these differences, there are vital responsibilities applicable to most top-tier security standards, which include:

• Developing and enforcing security procedures and policies
• Managing the compliance and security team
• Monitoring network activity, preparing for, and identifying potential threats
• Communicating the security posture with senior management, such as the CEO, CIO, or board of directors
• Creating incident response and disaster recovery plans

A crucial point is that these responsibilities share a commonality—they require consistent management. Nevertheless, the process of devising, implementing, and enforcing security policies to safeguard critical data poses its own set of challenges.

The 6 Security Compliance Control Challenges

Let's be straightforward – compliance is not always a smooth or simple journey. Without the appropriate tools, the challenges associated with maintaining compliance seem more burdensome than the benefits and importance of achieving compliance. 

So, is compliance really that demanding, or are you settling for subpar processes that might be counterproductive? 

Here’s our look at the top compliance challenges. While these challenges are widespread,  it doesn't imply you cannot overcome them.

The Ever-Changing Threat Landscape

Ensuring security compliance becomes more challenging as connected devices proliferate rapidly. The threat landscape becomes increasingly complex daily, mirroring the growing number of devices your team uses to connect to the company's network. Organizations cannot afford a reactive approach to information security and compliance, primarily when serving as a cloud service provider and navigating threats from various angles.

Solution:

• Implement proactive threat intelligence gathering to stay ahead of evolving threats.
• Utilize advanced security analytics and artificial intelligence to detect and respond to emerging threats.
• Regularly update and enhance security protocols to address new challenges.

Rapid Technology Evolution

Staying ahead of cybercriminal sophistication is incredibly challenging amid the rapid evolution of technologies. For instance, companies operating in a Kubernetes environment must deploy new technologies to manage platform vulnerabilities.

Additionally, with the rise in unauthorized lateral traffic within the company network, various organizations are adopting a zero-trust model, introducing new technologies and controls.

Solution:

• Establish a transparent, efficient, and flexible risk management strategy to keep your compliance team informed about shifts in legislation and technology.
• Create a secure, accurate, and easily accessible system of records to ensure the integrity and accessibility of important information.

Limited Visibility and Oversight

When it comes to compliance, it's a straightforward scenario – you're either fully compliant or not at all. Yet, pinpointing areas of vulnerability or highlighting risks that could impact your compliance becomes nearly impossible without a holistic view of all compliance-related activities. As a result, your compliance teams encounter difficulties in efficiently managing the effectiveness of security controls, making it easy for risks to slip through the cracks unnoticed or unaddressed.

Solution:

• Implement a centralized compliance management system for an exhaustive view of all compliance-related activities.
• Utilize automated tools and reporting mechanisms to enhance visibility into security controls.
• Conduct regular internal audits and assessments to identify and mitigate compliance gaps.

Inadequate Security Awareness Training

Your employees remain, and always will be, the first line of defense. While most security frameworks mandate regular Security Awareness Training (SAT) programs, many organizations lack adequate means to assess the practicality and impact of such programs. Unfortunately, not all security awareness initiatives meet expectations. Although they claim to provide a compliance solution, they often fail to evaluate your employees' understanding of the covered topics or ability to apply the acquired knowledge to real-world scenarios.

The most significant challenge lies in the ongoing nature of this process, which cannot be relegated to the back burner. However, this doesn't imply that it must overshadow all other business objectives.

Solution:

• Develop interactive and scenario-based security awareness training programs.
• Implement continuous evaluation mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of security awareness initiatives.
• Encourage a culture of security awareness through regular communication and updates.

The Perimeterless Organization

Your modern workforce is dynamic, remote, and cloud-centric, rendering traditional security perimeters obsolete. Legacy security infrastructures struggle to cope with this new complexity, complicating your efforts to ensure protection and compliance.

Solution:

• Adopt a zero-trust security model to secure dynamic and remote work environments.
• Implement robust identity and access management controls to ensure secure access.
• Utilize cloud-native security solutions designed for modern, perimeterless architectures.

Multiple Regulations

Operating in any industry likely involves compliance with various standards. For instance, if you're in healthcare, you must adhere to HIPAA, and if you accept POS payments, you must meet PCI DSS requirements. Additionally, serving EU citizens mandates compliance with GDPR.

Solution:

• Establish a comprehensive compliance framework that aligns with multiple industry standards.
• Conduct regular compliance assessments to ensure adherence to specific regulations.
• Utilize technology solutions that automate compliance checks and reporting for various regulations.

Security Compliance Control: Tackling the challenge

When proceeding to establish a framework for cybersecurity regulatory compliance, we suggest that you:

Go Global

Consider all the regulations that are relevant for your industry and also for every jurisdiction and region that you operate in.

Determine the commonalities to serve as the basic framework, and then you can devise local frameworks to manage the unique jurisdiction-specific requirements. As multiple regulations stem from established standards, these standards can be valuable for recognizing shared elements among different local regulations. 

However, it's crucial to emphasize that safeguarding the organization from potential threats entails more than just adhering to industry compliance standards. While they provide a foundation, the responsibilities of ensuring security compliance control extend beyond this point.

Expertise is Key

“Compliance with cyber integrity regulations requires deep experience in both technology and regulatory compliance.” (Deloitte)

Nothing is more beneficial to your efforts than hands-on experience and expertise. If you don’t have the resources to tackle this in-house, turning to a third-party provider specializing in cybersecurity solutions and further domain expertise in security compliance control stands out as the optimal approach to mitigate risk, ensure security and compliance, and avert potential damage.

How Can CISOs Stay Ahead of the Security Compliance Challenges? 

To stay ahead of the security compliance control challenges, it’s imperative to maintain team strength,  engage with peers, and be on top of security-related trends and news. Additionally, comprehending your industry’s regulatory framework requirements and whether you are meeting the standards is mission-critical. Security team management, ongoing education, risk assessment and management, and vigilance against outside threats and hackers are all important to the success of a robust compliance strategy. 

Conclusion

As regulations become more intricate and gaining insight into data repositories grows increasingly challenging, it becomes crucial to focus on your systems. Having a comprehensive compliance and data security plan in place is essential. This enhances the efficiency and speed of your compliance journey and expedites time to value. 

Adopting the right technology and a robust business VPN like PureDome offers a tangible solution. By encrypting data exchanged between central servers and remote locations, these business VPNs guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information. Additionally, they enable precise control over access rights and the ability to log and audit remote connections, contributing to compliance with regulatory audit procedures.