Do You Know Who Handles Regulatory Compliance for Your Business? You Should

There will always be standards that must be upheld in regard to compliance and regulations, regardless of which industry your organization falls into. Still, considering the results of the 2016 State of Compliance survey, you’ll be shocked to hear that there are countless businesses out there that don’t understand what’s required of them.

Issued by Liaison Technologies, the survey analyzed 479 executives of medium-to-large-sized organizations in the United States. Out of those surveyed, 47 percent had no clue what the data compliance standards of their given industry were.

Naturally, this leads to some rather large problems for any organization. It’s crucial that you are both aware and understanding of the data compliance standards expected of your industry. If you were to experience a data breach or mishandle data, you would have some difficulty justifying why this is. You might even be gambling your organization’s future, especially considering the fact that a data breach made public can cause customers to shy away from your business in the future. After all, if clients thought you didn’t care enough to understand how to protect their data, why should they invest their time and capital in your organization?

It helps to think of it from the user’s perspective. If a company lost your data during a data breach or had it stolen by hackers, would you still want to do business with them? Only expect from others what you expect for yourself.

Still, this survey reveals that the aforementioned scenario isn’t just a coincidence, but is also something that happens all the time. For instance, take a look at the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This particular protocol was reported as “applicable” for only three percent of client responses, even though there are countless businesses that take advantage of cardholder data storage, processing, or transmission. There is clearly some sort of misunderstanding in regard to what exactly compliance is.

As if this wasn’t enough cause for concern, a quarter of the survey respondents admit to being “unsure” of who within their organization is responsible for security. This means that it’s likely these companies probably aren’t prepared to handle major security problems, and that they’re unprepared for worst-case scenarios. Even worse, 85 percent of respondents still felt secure, regardless of the state of their organization’s compliance standards.

We find this situation completely unacceptable, which is why we offer managed IT services--including data security and compliance--to SMBs. If you can’t tell us who is in charge of your network security and privacy, we can tell you who should be: k_Street Consulting, LLC. To get started, give us a call at (202) 640-2737.