Overview of compliance lifecycle
1. Overview of compliance lifecycle
The cloud environment is constantly changing, which can make implementing compliance requirements challenging. But, it’s extremely important for organizational success. It helps introduce businesses to new clients and markets, raise customer trust and satisfaction, improve security posture, and save money. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s critical for any organization using the cloud to understand and implement the compliance lifecycle. The compliance lifecycle is the process for ensuring compliance objectives are met and maintained to support the business goals. It’s important to call out our discussion in this course should not be considered legal advice. Let’s check out the four stages of the compliance lifecycle. According to ISO 27001, the four stages of the compliance lifecycle are plan, implement, monitor, and report. The compliance lifecycle is a continuous lifecycle to help organizations comply with frameworks, industry standards, and internal organizational systems. The lifecycle also provides the governance to maintain a continuous compliance posture. NIST defines governance as the policies, procedures, and processes to manage and monitor an organization’s regulatory, legal, risk, environmental, and operational requirements that inform the management of cybersecurity risk. Generally, the governance model informs frameworks, standards, and laws for an organization. After you plan, implement, monitor, and report —and finish the lifecycle— the life cycle begins again. The findings in the report will affect the next cycle’s plans. Overall, the goal of the compliance lifecycle is to meet compliance requirements, or control objectives. Once met, the organization needs to demonstrate and maintain compliance with these requirements and objectives. Let’s examine the first stage of the lifecycle more closely. During the planning stage, you’ll identify compliance obligations for your organization, and assess how you will meet these obligations. The planning process might involve evaluating controls, assets, and processes that are already in place. This stage often involves a gap assessment. A gap assessment identifies the processes and controls that currently meet the organization’s obligations, and the areas that need to be addressed. The findings of the gap assessment will drive implementation actions. The second stage is the implement stage. In this stage, you will implement measures, like controls and processes, that will help you meet your compliance goals. Monitor, the third stage, comes after implementation. It is important to monitor the system to evaluate the effectiveness of the controls that were put into place. The final stage is report. In this stage, your organization must measure compliance by running reports and control checks. These reports are evidence that security measures have been implemented, and vulnerabilities have been remediated. Often, the resulting reports are submitted to auditors as proof of compliance. Now that you and your organization have done the hard work of regulatory and industry standard compliance, you must maintain a robust and compliant security posture. This is done by starting the lifecycle once again. Continually moving through the compliance lifecycle will help ensure that your organization maintains its compliance posture. The compliance lifecycle is never finished. It’s a continuous effort that’s required to keep the organization and its customers protected.2. Let's practice!
Create Your Free Account
or
By continuing, you accept our Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy and that your data is stored in the USA.