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10 Tips for Better Security and Easier Compliance

With the season of growth and reinvigoration right around the corner, it is time to implement some positive changes. We have compiled a list of tips that can help you improve your cybersecurity and ease your path to compliance with frameworks such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Here are a few tips that can easily be put into effect across the various departments of your organization without having to conduct any major budget-related discussions. They’re easy, efficient, and boost operations exponentially, thus contributing to the company’s growth in the industry. 

Tip #1: Organization-wide Security Training

Both SOC 2 and ISO 27001 require you to deliver security awareness training to your employees. A learning management system (LMS) such as Curricula or Infosec IQ can make the process much more convenient and efficient. As the world goes digital, eLearning is the way to go for easier, faster access to training, programs, and techniques that can accelerate your employees’ pathway to success.

Tip #2: Scan Your Cloud-Based Services for Vulnerabilities

The cloud-based services your organization uses may have vulnerabilities that can potentially disrupt or damage your operations. In order to avoid any security breaches or financial losses, it is important to scan for, identify and resolve any such risks in a timely manner. The leading hyperscalers, or large-scale cloud service providers, offer tools specifically designed for this purpose.

Tip #3: Upgrade Resource & Talent Management

One of the leading growth markers for an organization is the way it handles its talent recruitment process. HR & People management departments must ensure that the onboarding and offboarding processes are seamless, consistent, efficient, and well-documented for all parties involved. This plays a vital role in employee retention, and ensuring their overall job satisfaction. For the entirety of the recruitment process, the HR team must remain well versed in, and clearly communicate the company’s compliance and security policies to new hires to make sure they are aware of the rules and regulations that the company follows, and the penalties for disregarding them. A human resource information system (HRIS) such as TriNet can help. 

Tip #4: Cover Your Assets

Regularly maintaining an accurate and comprehensive asset inventory is vital to keep any organization, large or small, operational and financially stable. IT departments must also ensure that all mobile devices being used for handling sensitive information are secure for framework compliance. Jamf is an example of a popular mobile device management (MDM) solution for Apple devices. And if your users’ devices include Mac laptops, FileVault is a built-in disk drive encryption, which adds another layer of protection. 

Tip #5: Thorough Screening For New Hires

SOC 2 and ISO 27001 both require background checks and other forms of screening for new hires at any compliant organization. Tools such as Checkr make the process easier to execute and document from start to finish.

Tip #6: Scrutinize & Investigate Vendor Compliance

AWS, Google, and Microsoft are all SOC 2 compliant and ISO 27001 certified. You need to ensure all your other vendors are too, for foolproof security and to meet compliance requirements. An easy way to do this is by simply checking each vendor’s website for compliance-related information, or contact their customer care departments with any additional concerns.

Tip #7: Amplify Cybersecurity

One of the most basic ways to beef up cybersecurity is to establish an organization-wide password policy. This may require employees to update passwords regularly without reusing previous ones, and also incorporate the use of special characters, numerics, and different alphabet cases to create stronger passwords. Password management systems such as 1Password, Dashlane, or LastPass can help with easy management of all security codes consistently to meet your compliance requirements.

Tip #8: Improve Access Management

Creating a company-wide view of all processes, projects, timelines and roadmaps helps teams achieve goals more efficiently without delays - ultimately contributing to the growth of the organization as a whole. Use Jira or similar tools to manage, track and define systems accesses. Not only does this cover all relevant access credentials per employee, it also makes revising or removing access with immediate effect easier when someone changes roles or leaves the company.

Tip #9: Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Wherever Applicable

MFA helps improve your security by requiring users to provide additional validation credentials beyond their passwords. Here’s how to turn it on for the three leading cloud providers.

Tip #10: Scan Software Routinely

Most companies today use software in addition to services from cloud providers. Regular scans of all software being used within the company, specifically ones that host or manage sensitive data, can help keep you compliant and safe. IT departments can use tools like Deepsource.io to scan code, and define system accesses with Dependabot.

How Trustero Can Help

Trustero Compliance as a Service (CaaS) is a cloud-based, AI-powered platform designed to simplify and accelerate your road to SOC 2 compliance and ISO 27001 certification.

Through a single, comprehensive and easy-to-navigate platform, Trustero offers auditor-vetted controls, ready-to-use policy templates, the collection and delivery of actionable control evidence, and readiness testing. Well defined controls, seamless integrations for SaaS,  industry-specific features - Trustero is everything you can imagine - and so much more. 

The platform empowers you with real-time visibility into the effectiveness of each control, and the status of your entire system. It also includes receptors for instantaneous integrations with countless other tools and services. We offer Startup Assurance Packages for both SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Each one amalgamates the Trustero platform with Concierge Service, support, and a completed SOC 2 compliance report or ISO 27001 certification. 

Trust Trustero - for Compliance without the complexities.

 

Updated: March 8, 2023