IT compliance is a set of rules and guidelines that outline how your company keeps its people, processes, and data secure. They also ensure your business aligns with legal and regulatory requirements and helps your company avoid violating them.
Why IT Compliance Matters
Your IT compliance policy plays a critical role in ensuring you comply with legal mandates and regulations. It gives you the tools and procedures to mitigate and minimize possible data breaches while demonstrating that you adhere to best practices in risk management and data protection.
As an example, IT compliance policies improve your company’s security posture. Regular security audits and ongoing monitoring often identify vulnerabilities and give the team time to patch them before they’re exploited. A 2024 survey found that businesses that failed a compliance audit in the previous year were 10 times more likely to have suffered a data breach in that same year. Companies that experience a data breach are likely to face legal and financial penalties. More severe attacks can bring the business to a halt while it recovers.
How Is IT Compliance Different from IT Security?
IT compliance and IT security are similar concepts that work in tandem to ensure the data and information you process and retain are secure.
IT compliance is the laws, regulations, and guidelines that outline what information you must protect and how you protect it. Compliance regulations are often set by third parties, and they measure the safeguards you have in place and how well those safeguards secure your systems. Your IT compliance policy outlines how your company meets these standards.
IT security is a part of IT compliance, specifically the security measures your organization uses to thwart attacks. It describes the protocols and technical processes you use to identify and remediate vulnerabilities to prevent data breaches.
Ultimately, your IT compliance standards outline the IT security standards and procedures your company uses to protect the network, ensuring you meet the required IT compliance standards for data protection.
Common IT Compliance Standards
The compliance regulations your organization needs to meet are dependent on your industry, where you do business, and the data you collect or store. You may also have to comply depending on who your clients are and if you’re a government contractor for the U.S. government. It’s also quite likely you have to comply with multiple standards. For example, a doctor’s office must comply with HIPPA but may also need to comply with standards for protecting credit card information.
While some compliance regulations are required by law, others are optional. However, you may need to comply with those optional standards due to partner or vendor requirements. Other optional compliance standards are strictly voluntary, but following them demonstrates your commitment to following best practices.
Required Compliance Regulations
Regulatory bodies, like governments, have compliance regulations that apply to specific industries as well as general user data across all industries.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) sets privacy and security standards for protected health information (PHI). It outlines an individual’s right to control their health information and sets the rules for the use and disclosure of PHI by any entity subject to the rules.
General Data Protection Regulation
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to any organization that processes the personal data of European Union citizens, no matter where the organization is located. There are detailed and extensive rules regarding the collection and processing of personally identifiable data. While that includes things like someone's name or location data, it also includes IP addresses and cookies.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in 2002, and it established financial reporting and internal control requirements for public companies in the U.S. While the Act outlines multiple compliance standards, it was passed before cybersecurity was a concern.
However, the SEC enforces SOX and, over the years, has interpreted the Act to include IT compliance and cybersecurity matters. For example, in 2018, the SEC issued new guidance that details how companies must disclose data risks, incidents, and breaches to the public.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) is for financial institutions and outlines how they must protect customer data from security threats and breaches.
FedRAMP
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) details the security assessment and authorization process cloud service providers must meet to work with government agencies.
Optional But Mandatory Compliance Standards
Credit card and other payment information are popular targets for hackers. While financial institutions must comply with data safety and security regulations, not all payment processors are subject to the same regulations. However, the processors can meet third-party IT compliance standards to demonstrate their commitment to protecting customer data. Though meeting these standards may not be legally required, vendors, payment parties, or other third parties may insist your company comply in order to do business with you.
Payment Card Industry Security Standards
Payment Card Industry Security Standards (PCI) are developed and maintained by the PCI Security Standards Council. While there are multiple standards, the Council’s primary purpose is to ensure payment processors protect sensitive financial information, like credit card data.
As an example, the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) outlines the security compliance requirements for any system that stores, processes, or transmits data. The PTS Point of Interaction (POI) standards describe compliance requirements for protecting PIN information entered into a payment device.
Voluntary IT Compliance Standards
Voluntary certifications demonstrate you’re following IT compliance and security best practices and are committed to protecting sensitive customer data.
Service Organization Control
Service Organization Control (SOC) is a set of security standards developed by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (ACIPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). Companies that are SOC certified have met the minimum compliance requirements for security controls and how they process and keep user data confidential.
ISO/IEC 27001
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has a voluntary certification known as ISO/IEC 27001. Companies that comply with these standards have proven they have a system that manages data security risks and reflects current best practices and principles.
What to Include in Your IT Compliance Program
When designing your IT compliance policy, you’ll need to consider the legal requirements your company must meet along with any voluntary standards you want to comply with. At a minimum, your IT compliance program should include these items.
Employee Training Programs
An employee training program consists of two parts.
First, staff should review the IT compliance policy at least once a year, and the company should maintain documentation that this happened. Additional reviews may be necessary when the team makes a significant update that impacts employees.
Second, ongoing training and education helps staff understand their role and responsibility in protecting privileged information. For example, teaching them how to recognize and avoid phishing attempts can prevent them from falling for scams and giving up sensitive information that could lead to a data breach.
Access Controls
Controlling access to resources and sensitive data helps minimize the risk of attack. Logical access control, like requiring strong passwords and using multifactor authentication (MFA), is the first line of defense. Adding role-based access and regularly reviewing that access adds an extra layer of protection.
Physical access can be just as crucial in protecting data. While loss and theft can happen, having a way to lock or wipe endpoints remotely secures the network from intrusion.
Data Protection and Loss Prevention Plans
Data protection and loss prevention plans outline how your company monitors and audits your systems to detect and respond to threats. It also describes how you prevent unauthorized access, misuse, and disclosure of sensitive data.
Disaster Recovery Plan
Despite your best efforts, you may still experience data loss. Your disaster recovery plan outlines the policies, tools, and processes you’ll use to recover from the loss and move forward.
Most plans address breaches, hacks, and device theft, but a comprehensive IT compliance policy also has a plan for natural disasters like fires or floods.
Incident Response and Reporting
Incident response and reporting outlines the tools and procedures your company uses to respond to attacks once they’re identified. This part of the policy also describes your post-incident response, meaning how you’ll document the incident and what procedures you have in place to analyze and learn from the event.
Endpoint Visibility
Each endpoint on your network represents a possible security risk. An IT compliance policy that describes how you monitor and analyze the activity, risk, and vulnerability of every endpoint ensures each device is configured correctly to comply with your IT policies.
Data Sharing Controls
Data sharing controls explain how your company safely and securely shares data and information between departments and with external vendors and outside partners.
Regular Assessments, Monitoring, and Auditing
Regular risk assessment (like penetration testing) is an ongoing process to identify, analyze, and evaluate potential risks and provide insights into your security posture. Your IT compliance policy should outline how often you assess, monitor, and audit your network and endpoints, how you decide which vulnerabilities to address, and what happens if part or all of your network fails the audit.
Ensure Compliance With Your Policy
Your IT compliance policy outlines how your company keeps sensitive data and information safe from bad actors. The policy is only as good as your enforcement, but automating procedures can help.
Configuration management and patch management tools provide real-time visibility and monitoring of endpoints, allowing your IT team to deploy patches and updates automatically, ensuring every device aligns with your IT compliance policy.
Adpativa’s One Site Patch and Once Site Anywhere solutions allow you to set your IT compliance policy once and let automation handle the rest, freeing your team to focus on other security measures. Contact us today to schedule a demo.
