Continuous controls monitoring (CCM) is a crucial aspect of making GRC processes more automated, accurate, and actionable through technology. It helps organizations transition from inefficient point-in-time checks to automation-driven compliance controls that provide a real-time view into their security posture. That’s why many proactive risk management teams are already prioritizing control automation for their GRC program.

The latest version of the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS 2) has severe implications for companies that provide services or carry out activities in the European Union (EU). NIS 2’s goal is to establish a higher level of security and cyber resilience for member EU states in 18 essential industry sectors. Violations can lead to substantial fines, legal liability and even criminal sanctions on an individual level.

In a world where increasing numbers of transactions are done online, compliance with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is crucial. However, with more organizations turning to cloud-based service providers such as AWS, Azure or GCP, ensuring that payment data is kept completely secure is becoming more challenging.

According to Vanta’s 2023 State of Trust Report, respondents spend an average of nine working weeks per year on security compliance. ‍ Some security teams have accepted that governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) will inevitably take tons of time and effort. And many continue to work towards small-scale efficiencies because they don’t believe anything better is possible. ‍ But there’s a better option for today’s businesses: GRC automation.

Working as a contractor for the federal government means complying with a wide range of rules. Some of these are large, obvious, and well-enforced, like the security frameworks we so often discuss here on the Ignyte blog. Others are small rules, scattered throughout disparate memos and resources, and it can sometimes be easy to forget them – or not even know them at all. And, of course, it doesn’t help matters that these rules can change from time to time.

In today's increasingly digital world, where businesses rely heavily on technology for core operations, the European Union's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) establishes a comprehensive framework to manage Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related risks and ensure business continuity for financial institutions and critical service providers.

Effective identity and access management (IAM) is crucial to both data security and regulatory compliance. Closely governing identities and their access rights is vital to ensuring that each individual has access to only the business systems, applications and data that they need to perform their roles. IAM reduces the risk of accidental data exposure or deletion by account owners, while also limiting the damage that could be done by a malicious actor who compromises a user account.

For cybersecurity professionals tasked with defending the public sector, tackling the U.S. Government Configuration Baseline (USGCB) is just another hurdle to a safer federal tomorrow. Part of a wide collection of necessary federal government compliance requirements, it hones in on which baseline security configurations are necessary for federally deployed IT products.

Regulatory compliance is a common and critical part of today’s rapidly evolving financial services landscape. One new regulation that EU financial institutions must adhere to is the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), enacted to enhance the operational resilience of digital financial services. The BCI Supply Chain Resilience Report 2023 highlighted that 45.7% of organizations experienced supply chain disruptions with their closest suppliers, which is more than double the pre-pandemic levels.

For many teams, managing governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is still a very manual process. As a security leader, you might be wondering how to future-proof and scale your GRC program when so much of your team’s time is spent on collecting screenshots or copying and pasting information from one spreadsheet to another. ‍ The future of GRC management doesn’t have to be more of the same though.