Compliance Level Security – When to Turn it Up?

Most companies are unregulated and so they often think that the requirements for high levels of security don’t apply to them. But regulations are only one reason that companies need to adopt strong security (compliance level security).

Here are five important transitional signs that your company needs to elevate your security toward strong security compliance levels.

If your company is required to be security compliant, check out this compliance post and two others on that topic.

You Have High Value Data – Companies with high value data have the same reasons to employ strong security as do regulated companies. High value data includes: Intellectual property (creative designs) financial data, sales data, customer private data, personal private data, HR data, operational data and know-how. This is data you cannot live without and that you can’t afford to lose. Loss or corruption of high value data can enable competition, shut down or cripple your business and destroy your reputation.

High Availability – Companies that have critical IT or operational infrastructure the enables sales forces, manufacturing, operations, and engineering teams to perform without interruption understand the cost of the loss of availability. Your weakest link can cause extensive down time.

Growth Demands– Growing companies quickly understand that at some point the sheer risk to the business of lost or corrupt data, or loss of system availability overrides the cost of strong security. As companies grow, all data becomes more important because of the number of people that rely on that data.

Investor Concerns – Investors and board members must fulfill their fiduciary duty by requiring an appropriate level of security given your company’s value, data value, and risks of data breach or service interruption.

3^rd Party Requirements – security compliance regulations apply to both regulated companies and their affiliate partners (suppliers, processors, partners, etc) —this is something that many businesses overlook or neglect entirely. Business service companies of all types (lawyers, marketing firms, financial services, data services, HR firms, sales services firms and others) are routinely being asked to be compliant with their customer’s regulations and don’t know how to respond.

What are the recommendations for companies in the situations above that need compliance level security? Start by getting a security risk assessment that reviews your security posture, needs and risks from a trusted 3^rd party. Then you can define an informed strategy for your business and know that you are focused on the right security, right-sized for your business. There about 20 types of risk assessments, so make sure you get what you need.