Whether you’re a shrimp importer tracking the temperature of shipped shrimp, a nonprofit using state or federal grant funds or a healthcare professional protecting patients, it’s likely you are required to meet compliancy regulations. This, in turn, necessitates a robust compliance management plan.
It’s not enough to track compliance, you also have to be able to collect, secure and report information to regulatory entities. Tracking compliancy is particularly difficult and would be almost impossible without technology as a key tool in successfully meeting regulations.
Just like you need a CPA for tax services or an attorney for legal advice, you need a third-party IT consultant who understands how compliancy relates to your technology environment. Integrating compliancy software and specific security practices into your day-to-day operations is crucial to reporting data accurately to governing agencies. In fact, securing data is the primary objective of many compliancy laws. Compliance auditors must see evidence that policies, procedures and practices have been implemented to secure the data required by compliance guidelines.
When looking for an IT partner to manage the technology aspects of your compliancy plan, make sure they have experience and expertise in the following areas.
4 Compliance Objectives Your IT Partner Should Manage
- Control of your environment
Most compliance laws require organizations to have a process to plan and manage IT risk. As a third-party provider, your IT managed service provider must also meet standards set forth by the regulator. In fact, many times a third-party IT service is required by an audit.
- Develop strategic plan for IT plans and priorities
- Regularly evaluate IT risks and address any risks identified
- Data center and backups
An appropriate, reliable data backup and recovery processes must be part of your strategic plan. Data and file server backups are performed – and tested – to minimize the risk of lost or corrupted data. Backups should only be accessible by authorized personnel and this practice needs to be documented.
- Provide logs and snapshots of backup intervals
- Ensure parties that house backups have proper controls in place
- Information cybersecurity
Software, data and equipment are safeguarded to prevent unauthorized access. This includes securing email, files and network information while physically protecting server rooms, offline data storage and hardware.Many compliance regulations place a high emphasis on this area as non-compliancy potentially affects many people through loss of personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and health information. Information security reaps a high number of legal infractions and fines.
- Develop and implement information security policies
- Document employee changes including processes for removing and issuing user accounts
- Proof of IT password policies and practices being followed
- Inventory of security controls in place such as firewalls, routers, intrusions detectors, etc.
- Conduct vulnerability assessments
- Change management
A centralized change tracking system ensures that any organizational application, database and operating system changes have been approved and are being managed in conjunction with compliance regulations.
- Formalize policies to manage changes
- Maintain a list of system changes
- Provide supporting documents to prove system changes have been authorized
As your company’s Chief Information Officer, Diamond IT is your partner in meeting compliancy tracking, remediation and maintenance requirements. Don’t let industry or governmental regulations stand in your way of success. Our team is ready to help – Contact us online or call 877-716-8324