Last year was a tough one for schools, local, and state governments. Not simply because of COVID-19, which forced every local government and school to navigate a pandemic, but also because the pandemic brought with it a different set of dangers. While local governments and schools were trying to figure out remote learning, remote work, and how to run public meetings safely and effectively online, cybercriminals took advantage of the fact that the remote world is new to most small governments.

Regardless of your industry, regulatory compliance is an important component of ongoing success. Staying on top of your compliance obligations can be challenging, and a strong compliance management program will require a compliance management system.

One of the most common misconceptions about cybersecurity is that the responsibility and ownership sits solely on the shoulders of the CISO and the security team. Common assumptions are anything related to cybersecurity, a security issue or security initiative resides with the security team and the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Phishing attacks? That’s a problem for the security department. Vetting vendors and third parties? That belongs to the vendor management team.

Digital transformation changes the perimeter. When organizations had all their applications on-premises, the network firewall kept the right users inside the gate and malicious actors outside. However, the move to the cloud changed all that. In today’s hyper-connected ecosystem, understanding the components and types of access control can help you strengthen security.

Insurance companies know how to protect their clients’ homes, cars, and businesses— but protecting the personal information of those customers is a bit harder to assure. While the insurance industry focuses on risk-based analyses for its own underwriting programs, firms also need to apply those same risk management processes to securing customer information.

A SOC 2 system description outlines the boundaries of a SOC report. It contains pertinent details regarding the people, processes, and technology that support your product, software, or service. As a reminder, the SOC framework stands for System and Organization Controls. It is a broad architecture that organizations can use to audit the internal controls of vendors and business partners before entering a relationship with those firms, to assess whether those firms have a robust security posture.

Third-party risk management (TPRM), also known as “vendor risk management” is the process of managing risks introduced to your business by your organization’s vendors, suppliers, contractors, and service providers. Any outside party that plays a significant part in your company’s ecosystem or supply chain is considered a third-party vendor.

Many businesses are shifting workloads to the cloud in an effort to increase efficiency and streamline workloads. In fact, according to the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report, roughly 90% of enterprises anticipate cloud usage will expand even further as a result of COVID-19. While cloud computing can offer organizations a competitive advantage, it is important not to rush into cloud adoptions without understanding the risks involved as well.

Good data governance can go a long way toward reducing business risk. If your content and your data are secure, you’ve eliminated danger to your customers’ information and secured your proprietary information. From a digital perspective, you’re ahead of the game. But data governance shouldn’t be your only concern.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation applies to any organization that operates in the EU or that collects or processes the personal data of EU citizens. So if a business in the United States (or anywhere else in the world, for that matter) does handle such data — yes, the GDPR can apply to you. That said, the exact compliance requirements will vary depending on the size of your company and how you process and store the applicable data.