RegTech Simplifies Governance, Risk, and Compliance

As compliance costs skyrocket, standards grow increasingly complex, and the cyber threat environment evolves, organizations are turning to RegTech solutions to automate their compliance processes and improve their overall cybersecurity posture.

Compliance with regulatory and industry standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, and SSAE 16 SOC reporting, are a burdensome yet necessary part of doing business in the digital world. Organizations operating in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and finance, face significant compliance challenges, especially when they must comply with multiple standards. HIPAA, for example, applies to any organization that handles medical records, including schools, collection agencies that handle medical debt, personal injury attorneys, and SaaS providers of healthcare software; meanwhile, these same organizations may also have to comply with PCI DSS, SSAE 16 reporting, SOX, and other applicable standards.

Organizations must figure out which standards apply to them, then continually keep up with reporting requirements, audits, and the inevitable changes in those standards as technology and the cyber threat environment evolve. It is estimated that regulatory compliance costs U.S. businesses about $2 trillion annually, and in a perverse twist, small business’s compliance costs are over three times higher than what large companies bear. This heavy burden helps explain why so many enterprise cyber security “plans” start and end with compliance, even though compliance does not equate to data security. It’s not necessarily that organizations don’t care about whether their data is secure, but that they spend so much money and time on compliance, there’s nothing left to tackle cyber security.

Fortunately, technology has made it possible for organizations to achieve compliance and secure their systems and data, at an affordable cost.

RegTech to the Rescue

One of the biggest problems in many organizations is the fact that their compliance processes – or the processes of their third-party compliance providers – are not automated. Some companies still use spreadsheet programs such as Excel for compliance reporting and audits, even though Excel was never meant to be used with the very large data sets produced by today’s complex data environments. But RegTech software, such as Continuum GRC’s IT Audit Machine (ITAM), can.

While the term “RegTech” is most commonly associated with the finance industry, RegTech solutions can be employed by any organization that must adhere to compliance standards, including healthcare, cloud computing, SaaS, education, and public-sector organizations. RegTech solutions utilize big data capabilities and rapid report creation to automate data management and reporting. Instead of multiple, disparate spreadsheets and ledgers, RegTech software creates a centralized repository of all IT compliance requirements with associated controls and automated information flows for audits, assessments, and testing.

Making Sense of Big Data

The big problem with big data is that it amounts to a lot of big noise unless you have the capability to analyze it and derive actionable insight from it. RegTech doesn’t just simplify your compliance processes; it also strengthens your enterprise’s cyber security by providing the advanced data analysis capabilities you need to make sense of your data environment and discover where your vulnerabilities lie. The ITAM, for example, integrates IT governance, policy management, risk management, and incident management. In addition to taking the pain out of the compliance process, it empowers you to document and analyze IT risks, develop mitigation plans, define security controls, and manage ongoing risk assessments so that you can anticipate new and emerging threats and stop them before a breach occurs.

RegTech is poised to transform IT governance, compliance, and cyber security. Organizations that employ this new technology will free up money, time, and human resources to innovate, create, and pursue long-term organizational goals instead of being bogged down in regulatory paperwork and worried about data breaches and other cyber attacks.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. We offer full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC software to protect companies from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization successfully simplify Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and secure your systems.

A recent report revealed that “More than 209,000 cyber security job postings in the U.S. are unfilled, and postings are up 74% over the past five years.”

Lazarus Alliance Cybervisor’s are the front line for the global business community bridging this critical cyber security job talent shortage.

Steve Morgan, a professional acquaintance who writes about cyber security for Forbes published One Million Cyber security Job Openings In 2016 and revealed some jaw-dropping statistics concerning the growing deficit in hiring qualified cyber security employees. To make matters worse, this chasm is exacerbated by the explosion of corporate breaches impacting and even decimating businesses in financials, education, business, government and especially healthcare.

A recent report revealed that “More than 209,000 cyber security jobs in the U.S. are unfilled, and postings are up 74% over the past five years, according to a Peninsula Press (a project of the Stanford University Journalism Program) 2015 analysis of numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” It is pretty clear that while there currently is not enough talent to go around; this is only getting exponentially worse.

Another report included “A report from Cisco puts the global figure at one million cyber security job openings. The demand for the (cybersecurity) workforce is expected to rise to 6 million (globally) by 2019, with a projected shortfall of 1.5 million” stated Michael Brown, CEO at Symantec, the world’s largest security software vendor.” This only turns up the anxiety level on companies who are scrambling to avoid being the “breach du jour”.

Compounding matters are that there is a significant increase in regulatory and compliance requirements across all industries. Every compliance framework out there went through major overhauls in 2015. In some cases as is the case for the SSAE 16; doubled in complexity. The situation just got more expensive and complex.

The only clear answers for businesses who want to remain viable in the global cyber threatscape come in the form of increased efficiencies and leveraged resources. Two of the best solutions that have emerged to address these challenges are:

Retain a Cybervisor®:

Retaining the help from dedicated and verifiable cyber security experts costs less than the expense of hiring just one (1) cyber security employee. And yes, that was a plural not singular expert. With professional Cybervisor services companies get the expertise of many seasoned experts who collaborate and stand together to support their clients.

Automation is Your Friend:

It’s time to work smarter and not harder! By utilizing automated cyber security and GRC tools, we have discovered that employees are so much more efficient and effective. In fact utilizing a tool like ITAM consistently makes the cyber security, GRC assessments and reporting processes a whopping 180% more efficient on average. When time is money, ITAM is like getting three (3) dedicated cyber security employees for less than the cost of one (1).

Learn more about Lazarus Alliance and why Lazarus Alliance is Proactive Cyber Security™.

Why are data breaches escalating?

Could it be that this problem threatening business and consumers alike is directly related to service auditors and security assessors are still using the same audit and assessment tools again this year? Data breaches are escalating and the technology your service provider is using and the way they conduct assessments may be the problem.

Fact 1

Traditional audit and assessment sampling rates are up to 15% of the total population of available evidence and artifacts. This leaves an 85% margin of error! Imagine of you lost 85% of your vision. How well would you be able to see the world around you?

ITAM enables a sampling rate of 100% through advance automation and proactive assessment capabilities giving you and your assessors perfect 20/20 visibility into your organization. You will spot the problems before cyber criminals do.

FACT 2

Traditional audit and assessment tools involve the square peg in a round hole adaptation of a simple spreadsheet. There are huge implications and opportunities for the breakdown of cyber security, audit and compliance assessment efforts simply due to the technical limitations of a spreadsheet. Adding insult to injury is that, due to this antiquated approach, it is impossible to document audit and assessment responses in a meaningful way.

ITAM has Big Data capabilities engineered into it with unlimited assessment field and 100% SQL table usage maximizing your ability to manage assessment information and meaningful responses. Check out exactly what the technical limits are on that spreadsheet.

Fact 3

When an estimated 96% of all data breach potential is eliminated by simple and intermediate controls. The identification and examination of these requires an approach that is well established in best practice proactive methodologies; that is considering the big picture and not a paltry 15%; that provides an active roadmap and gets you to the successful destination regardless of your level of expertise; and does not break the bank.

The IT Audit Machine provides all of these advantages and so much more in an extremely affordable package any organization can afford and avoid being on the next industry report of data breaches. When 60% of SMB’s are out of business within 6 months of a data breach, why risk your company, livelihood and reputation?