Security configuration management (SCM) can help organizations do much more than just harden their attack surfaces against intrusions. This fundamental control also has the ability to make your audits flow more smoothly. Indeed, it allows organizations to pull reports from any point in time and demonstrate how their configuration changes and alignments help to support their compliance efforts.

In our final installment of a six-part series for CISOs who are looking to survive the “Wild West” of application security, we explore the sometimes tempestuous relationship between security and compliance. Follow us through this last piece of the security puzzle, as we continue to think about the “how” of doing business in a digital environment that often feels like a lawless frontier.

Data classification is a vital component of any information security and compliance program, especially if your organization stores large volumes of data. It provides a solid foundation for your data security strategy by helping you understand where you store sensitive and regulated data, both on premises and in the cloud. Moreover, data classification improves user productivity and decision-making, and reduces storage and maintenance costs by enabling you to eliminate unneeded data.

Compliance testing, also known as conformance testing, is a periodic, independent, and objective assessment of compliance-related processes and/or controls. The goal of compliance testing is to determine whether the elements, processes, and controls of your compliance program are designed appropriately and operating as designed. Compliance testing follows an established process and plan as well as a risk-based approach.

With the state of the world today, healthcare facilities of all kinds and sizes are operating under a state of distress. Employees are working on the frontlines, while also having to manage low budgets for IT security, coupled with low resources and all the while having to manage legal and compliance issues on top of it. Sometimes there’s so much emphasis put on the primary platform where patient health information (PHI) resides, other parts of the network are overlooked to determine compliance.

Each month, Reciprocity highlights companies that have earned compliance certifications for information security frameworks. Here’s our August 2020 roundup of compliance news from around the United States, and around the world.

Monitoring and compliance are, in many ways, synonymous. At the very least, there’s a big overlap in terms of defining and monitoring rulesets you care about. The time frame may vary; with monitoring, you might jump on an alert right away, as opposed to the compliance team’s quarterly audit, but the foundation remains the same. As our development cycles grow ever more dynamic, the need for automating repetitive tasks becomes all the more important.

Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) are major inhibitors for organizations moving to the cloud—and for good reason. Cloud environments are complex, and even a single misconfigured security group can result in a serious data breach. In fact, asset misconfigurations were the leading cause of cloud security breaches in 2019. This puts a lot of pressure on developer and operations teams to properly secure their services and maintain regulatory compliance.