Monday, December 13, 2010

Curbing Insider Threats for Successful IT Compliance


Information leakage is a serious security breach that not only damages an organization’s revenue figures but its reputation. Data security is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain owing to easy accessibility of sensitive data. This has become a massive concern for organizations. In addition to this, disgruntled or negligent employees have been responsible for a number of security breaches, and this has made IT Security compliance issues all the more challenging.

In the recent years, several instances of data breach have been reported.  One such was incident was that of South Shore hospital reporting loss of 800,000 medical records, and another where a hard drive was lost with 280,000 Medicaid enrollees’ data. And employees have been identified to be responsible for the breaches in both cases.

Employees are the weakest security barriers of any organization and those with access to sensitive data have to be extra careful in data sharing practices. It is therefore important that employees are made aware of the extent of security concerns. They should be trained in best practices favorable to the IT environment while remaining in sync with business goals.

A robust compliance management software solution with compelling features and foolproof solutions for enforcement of security can come a long way in keeping a check on insider threats. Such solutions provide advanced monitoring and reporting capabilities which can keep track of who is accessing information and who all have access to sensitive data. These solutions can also enable secure authentication to prevent unauthorized use of confidential data.

Compliance software provides complete security in the business environment. The flexible nature of compliance software makes it possible to customize it to suit business needs. Due to its centralized management system controlling the compliance environment becomes much easier with enhanced visibility. It enables carrying out security policy enforcements uniformly across all units.

It also generates timely reports of the compliance status thus revealing gaps and giving an opportunity to bridge them. Most organizations lack in this sphere due to inadequate reporting capabilities. With automated compliance solution however real-time monitoring and reporting is enabled.

Thus a competent threat management solution encompassing all governance, risk and compliance functions is the only way to create a healthy and secure IT environment.

Read More on:
·         Hippa Compliance
·         Glba Compliance

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