As more businesses move their operations to the cloud, the risk of cyberattacks and data security breaches increases. To help businesses stay away from these security pitfalls and to help protect the personal information of users, many industry bodies have come up with stringent framework regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, and more.
Companies must adhere to these standards to avoid financial penalties, reputational damage, and other legal liabilities that may come with non-compliance. More importantly, following these standards can help companies safeguard their data and applications from falling into the wrong hands. Due to these reasons, complying with cloud standards and regulations is beneficial for every business, regardless of its size.
Whether you're a small business owner looking to move your operations to the cloud or a large enterprise seeking to streamline your compliance efforts, read on, as this guide has the information you need to navigate the complex world of cloud compliance and ensure that your business is operating within the bounds of local and international laws.
What is Cloud Compliance?
In simple words, cloud compliance is the measures you take within your organization to comply with the rules and regulations of existing standards. Cloud compliance is applicable only if you're using cloud-based services, have data or operations in the cloud, or plan to migrate anytime soon. The regulations laid down by GDPR, HIPAA, and other laws protect sensitive data, ensure data privacy, and prevent unauthorized access to your cloud-based resources, all of which can provide rich benefits for your organization.
To adhere to these cloud standards, you may often need a dedicated team that's well-supported by advanced tools because cloud compliance requirements may vary depending on the industry, type of data being stored, and location where the data is being stored. More importantly, you can choose to adhere to more than one cloud standard, and this can further require more resources for compliance.
Before we head into a broad set of steps to meet cloud compliance, let's take a quick look at its benefits.
Benefits of Cloud Compliance
Earlier, we saw that cloud compliance protects your organization from potential security threats. But that's not all, there are more benefits that come with cloud compliance.
- Cost Savings Non-compliance with certain mandatory laws, such as GDPR, can result in financial penalties and the loss of access to low-interest credit. On the other hand, when you comply, you can avoid penalties and fines, which in turn can result in significant financial savings for your organization. More importantly, cloud compliance can provide better access to cheaper credit for your business, and this can also help you make prudent financial decisions.
- Legal Hassles Legal costs are one of the largest chunks of expenditures that an organization faces as a result of a data breach. This is because most organizations have to hire external legal counsel, and the costs can run into millions. Plus, the settlement payouts to those affected add significantly to the costs. Though cloud compliance may not protect you from all cyberattacks and data breaches, it can still greatly reduce the chances of becoming a victim of such an attack. Along with it, you can reduce the chances of legal hassles and costs as well.
- Loss of Reputation A cyberattack causes customers to lose confidence in a business and its ability to safeguard their data. More likely, customers would move on to other companies offering similar products or services, but with greater data protection measures.
- Business Continuity Reports show that about 60% of small businesses shut down within six months of a cyberattack because of the financial loss and the damage to their reputation that ensues. Even in the case of large companies, cyberattacks greatly impact business continuity, and it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years for these large businesses to bounce back.
- Loss of Critical Data A cyberattack can cause your organization to lose critical data and sensitive information like patents, customers' personal information, and more. Getting this data back may not be easy, and a possible loss is sure to have a far-reaching impact on your organization's long-term goals and operations. Given this myriad of impacts, it is a sensible decision to adhere to cloud compliance. Though compliance with the existing standards does not guarantee 100% protection against cyberattacks, there are higher chances for your organization to avoid most attacks.
Next, let's see what the broad steps involved in cloud compliance are.
Implementing Cloud Compliance
Though cloud compliance offers many financial and non-financial benefits, adhering to these regulations is not easy. Furthermore, compliance becomes complicated if you have to follow more than one standard based on your business location and the industry in which you operate. For example, if you live in Europe, adherence to GDPR is mandatory, while businesses in the healthcare sector must follow HIPAA guidelines. Similarly, if you're storing or processing credit card information, adhering to PCI DSS is mandatory. As you can see, there is likely to be some overlap between the standards, and adherence to these multiple laws and frameworks is mandatory.
To navigate through this cloud compliance maze, it's important to take a systematic approach that involves the below-mentioned steps.
Identify Applicable Cloud Standards
The first step towards cloud compliance is research. Identify what the mandatory compliance standards are that you must follow. As mentioned earlier, GDPR is mandatory if you operate in Europe, while adherence to HIPAA and PCI DSS is mandatory for healthcare and credit card processing operations, respectively. Besides these, here are a few other significant standards and their relevance for organizations.
| Name of the Standard | Optional/Mandatory | Who is it for? | Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO 27001/27002 | Optional | Companies that handle sensitive information | Demonstrates your commitment to information security and boosts your reputation |
| ISO 27017 | Optional | Companies that operate in the cloud | Extension of ISO 27001 |
| System and Organization Control (SOC) | Optional | SaaS providers | Used as a benchmark for prospective clients to assess the built-in security controls of your SaaS product |
| California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) | Mandatory | Located in California, with annual revenue of over $25 million, at least half of which is generated by selling its customers' personal information | Legal fines |
While the above is not an exhaustive list, it sure gives you an idea of how to go about it. Start with the mandatory ones before working your way down through the optional ones that can enhance your security and reputation.
Perform a Risk Assessment
Once you've identified the list of standards, evaluate where your organization stands against the provisions of each of these standards. In particular, perform a risk assessment that would provide a list of potential risks and vulnerabilities associated with cloud security. Here are some broad activities that you can undertake as part of your risk assessment.
- Identify all the assets stored in the cloud
- Classify your data based on its sensitivity
- Thoroughly check your cloud infrastructure and make a list of the potential vulnerabilities that could allow unauthorized players to access your sensitive data
- Double-check your configurations for any exploitable weaknesses
- Assign a risk score from 1 to 5, where 1 is the lowest risk and 5 is the highest, to each identified vulnerability
- Prioritize your vulnerabilities, starting with the riskiest ones
Implement Security Measures and Controls
Now that you know what vulnerabilities to address, it's time to implement the necessary security measures and controls to address them. Some possible ideas include:
- Use encryption
- Implement role-based access
- Build application and data security measures into your cloud infrastructure
- Focus on endpoint security
- Maintain an effective password strategy
- Secure data backup and restoration
- Perform pen and fuzz testing to find the vulnerabilities
- Make training an integral part of security
Match the above measures to meet your organization's goals and preferences.
Monitor Compliance
If implementing security controls is one side of the coin, monitoring their impact on compliance is what completes the process.
You can track security incidents and their root causes, assess how a specific control or policy is impacting security, and conduct regular audits to track improvements. Along with the above measures, consider generating reports to understand your progress and convey the same to your stakeholders.
Update Policies and Processes
Based on your monitoring results, you may have to tweak or even completely alter the security measures and controls you have implemented. Plus, stay on top of the changing provisions in different standards and see what needs to be done at your end to adhere to them. Also, monitor the dynamic cybersecurity risks and come up with measures to avoid them.
The above set of processes is continuous, and your organization needs a dedicated team to monitor this compliance. To support their efforts, consider investing in cloud compliance tools that will provide the insights they need, generate relevant reports, send alerts, and more.
Popular Cloud Compliance Tools
Cloud compliance tools can automate many of the processes required for compliance, including assessing emerging threats, monitoring the performance of key metrics, taking actions immediately when needed, and more. Some tools even come with templates and checklists that can help your business ensure that you're taking the right measures.
Below are some popular cloud compliance tools that can come in handy to meet the provisions of different cloud security standards.
1. Cyscale
Cyscale is a comprehensive cloud security platform that provides in-depth control and visibility into your cloud infrastructure and assets, so you can stay on top of even the smallest changes in their performance. It is easy to set up as well, and you can map and secure your cloud compliance monitoring within just a few minutes. By staying on top of your assets, you can quickly identify the ones that are violating your cloud security standards.
In particular, its security knowledge graph provides a rich correlation of all the assets and their vulnerabilities in real-time, so you can get a contextual view of an issue. In turn, this information can ease your troubleshooting.
Click here to try Cyscale for free.
2. Vanta
Vanta is another popular compliance and security automation platform that simplifies security and helps to meet the requirements of many standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and more. It continuously monitors tools, systems, processes, and roles to improve your cloud security score. It comes with 60+ integrations and APIs for custom solutions, so you can integrate this tool with any cloud app or infrastructure.
Click here to request a demo of Vanta.
3. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is an AI-based antivirus and endpoint protection tool that brings down the chances of cyberattacks on your backup data. It also integrates data protection with centralized management to provide clear views of the state of your security and can help you take the necessary steps for corrective action. It is also highly suited for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who have to meet service-level agreements with their end clients.
Click here to try Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud.
4. Checkpoint CloudGuard
Checkpoint's CloudGuard is a unified cloud security tool that keeps your cloud infrastructure secure while ensuring compliance with leading cloud standards. It also comes with automation capabilities to secure your assets, prevent threats, and manage cloud migration. More importantly, CloudGuard works well across multiple cloud platforms and providers to provide unified protection.
Click here to register for a free demo.
Thus, these are some tools that can help with your cloud compliance.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, cloud compliance is critical for all businesses that have some or all of their operations in the cloud, as the compliance provisions greatly enhance the chances of safeguarding your data and ensuring privacy. More importantly, compliance with cloud data protection and privacy laws, security frameworks, and industry-specific regulations can help you avoid financial penalties, legal liabilities, and reputational damage.
However, achieving and maintaining cloud compliance is not easy, as it requires a systematic approach that involves identifying applicable regulations and standards, conducting a risk assessment, implementing security controls, monitoring and reporting on compliance, and updating policies and procedures. Besides having a dedicated team to handle these different aspects of cloud compliance, consider investing in tools and resources like Cyscale, which help businesses achieve cloud compliance.
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