Most companies in today’s business landscape need to adhere to regulatory compliance standards. The regulations may come from governmental agencies or industry groups. In most cases, a company can face financial penalties and reputational damage for failure to comply with regulatory standards.
Companies processing the following data types must comply with specific regulatory standards.
- Healthcare data – Organizations in the healthcare field need to protect the security and privacy of patient data. U.S. companies must comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) to keep patient data secure and available.
- Financial information – Companies processing customers’ credit card information must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Financial institutions like banks and brokers must comply with additional regulations like the Bank Secrecy Act and the Dodd-Frank Act.
- Personal data – Organizations handling personal information may be subject to privacy laws like the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), depending on where they conduct business.
How to Ensure Regulatory Compliance in Any IT Environment
Compliance can be very challenging to ensure in complex and multi-cloud environments. Companies require a strategic approach that combines effective administrative policies, operational procedures, and targeted technical solutions to maintain regulatory compliance.
Organizations should consider the following best practices to comply with regulated data standards.
Understand the relevant regulations
Companies need to identify the regulations that apply to them. These regulations may include industry standards, rules related to certain business activities, or laws applicable to specific geographic regions and their citizens. Many organizations must comply with multiple sets of regulations or rules that only affect a subset of their operations.
For example, healthcare providers that process credit card payments must comply with HIPAA and PCI-DSS. Companies with international customers may have to address conflicting regulations regarding data privacy for specific customer groups living in diverse geographic regions.
Organizations must keep updated regarding changes or new regulations impacting their business. Staying updated is best done with the administrative infrastructure discussed in the next best practice.
Create a compliance program
Companies must create a comprehensive compliance program when subject to regulatory oversight. The following components are critical for an effective compliance program.
- Assign a compliance focal – Companies need a compliance focal to oversee all compliance activities. This individual should have a strong understanding of the applicable regulations and be responsible for remaining updated on changes that affect the organization. The focal should ensure that all updates are communicated to the compliance team.
- A compliance team – The focal should assemble a compliance team to develop and enforce the organization’s policies and procedures. Large companies may have dedicated compliance teams, whereas smaller organizations must enlist individuals with additional responsibilities.
- Organizational policies and procedures – Organizations must develop policies to meet regulatory requirements. The specific regulations may impact the scope of necessary policies and procedures an organization must implement. They may include safeguards such as minimizing access to systems processing regulated data or archiving records for extended periods.
Establish a code of conduct and accountability standards
Businesses must establish a code of conduct that promotes a culture of compliance across the company. They need to adopt guidelines that align with regulatory standards and ensure ethical behavior by all employees. Management should introduce the following elements to ensure accountability with compliance standards.
- Organizations should define clear roles regarding compliance responsibilities for employees at all levels.
- A company should maintain rigorous documentation for all compliance activities. The documentation can be used as evidence in compliance audits and as employee guidance.
- Management must hold employees accountable for compliance failures.
Emphasize employee training
Organizations must ensure all employees are trained and aware of their responsibilities when processing regulated data. Employees must be required to take all relevant training. Some regulations, like HIPAA, require annual certification of ongoing education and awareness training.
All training should be documented for use in future compliance audits. The failure to ensure employee training is often the cause of expensive compliance violations. A proactive approach is beneficial to all parties by reducing errors and oversights leading to potential non-compliance.
Perform risk assessment and mitigation
Companies need to assess their environment with a focus on how non-compliance can affect them. The assessment needs to consider situations like data breaches or extended outages affecting the availability of regulated data. Teams should document all potential vulnerabilities.
Teams need to develop and implement mitigation plans to address all detected vulnerabilities. These may include technical solutions like encryption or ensuring disaster recovery readiness. The plans may have to take steps to modify non-compliant employee behavior.
Implement technical solutions
Organizations need to implement targeted technology to comply with regulatory guidelines. These solutions typically include the following tools and procedures.
- Automated auditing, monitoring, and reporting systems can generate alerts for potential non-compliance. Teams should regularly review audit reports to identify possible compliance gaps.
- Companies need robust data protection technology to protect the security and privacy of regulated information. Strict access controls and end-to-end encryption provide enhanced protection for sensitive data.
- Data protection includes effective backup procedures and disaster recovery plans to ensure the availability of regulated data.
Let VAST Help You Maintain Regulatory Compliance
VAST can help your company with the multiple moving parts of maintaining regulatory compliance. We offer tools and services to govern and protect your regulated data effectively.
Our data governance services utilize the Veritas Enterprise Vault to implement information governance strategies. We’ll help you automate workflows and retention policies for efficient and economical data governance.
VAST View monitors and logs all your cloud resources to support data governance and compliance.
Our Cloud Backup-as-a-Service (CBaaS) offering offering simplifies protecting your sensitive data. The service provides immutable backups necessary for regulatory compliance and uses cutting-edge technology.
VAST’s Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solution enables companies of any size to protect their IT environment and meet regulatory requirements for data availability. The service utilizes AWS Elastic Data Recovery for enhanced resilience by recovering in alternate geographic regions.
Contact our team today and let us help you ensure compliance across your IT infrastructure.
