Showing posts with label compliance management solution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compliance management solution. Show all posts

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Understanding Vendor Management Strategies

Globalization has paved way for expansion of the business enterprises across boundaries. In the process, it has also paved way for opening up of various opportunities for small and medium enterprises, groups or individuals to act as vendors for the large corporate houses. Further, technological growth has given the dynamic business environment networking systems to keep them connected and share business related critical data and information across the network. However, all this e-information needs to be protected from cyber attack.

To guard such vital business information organizations require management solutions, the effectiveness of which lies in the strength of the firewall and information security programs. Designing and developing such strong threat management systems requires a proper understanding of origin of threats and its modus operandi. Selection of vendors and using an effective vendor management system will help organizations alleviate threats and keep a tab of all the links to the network.

Vendors can be defined as a group of workers, independent professionals, consultants or experts, either freelancing or on temporary contract, outsourced by an organization. Gartner’s research on vendor management goes a long way in aiding organizations with the right metrics and relationships required in selecting the vendors best fit the organization.  An effective vendor management system thus enables organizations to control overhead costs, drive service excellence throughout the product life cycle.

For every organization, the important aspect of managing vendors is the ability to share information and priorities with them. However, with threats looming large over the World Wide Web and the risks to corporate networks, organizations need to effectively manage risk and compliance simultaneously while being cost efficient. Leading service providers have worked out effective vendor management processes for these organizations. Such process will enable the global organizations to understand the risks of their business relationships with third-party vendors regarding data sharing or outsourcing.

By integrating effective risk management solutions involving people, policies, process and technology and the structured vendor management approach will help organization establish a continuous communication and alleviate threats while achieving quality service.   The risk management solutions available as an on-demand service from the service providers would provide client organizations the necessary support for managing vendors, cyber-security, operations, and IT compliance.

Vendor management solutions offered by the leading service providers, to protect the global organizations, from various unknown threats,   helps client organization to automatically monitor and manage sensitive data and technical controls. It enables managers to manage the risks involved, assesses vendor risk against best practice standards, derive IT compliance , vendor compliance and risks ratings. By adopting such effective approaches to reduce business risks, organizations can gain a competitive advantage.


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Thursday, 18 October 2012

Attain Regulatory Compliance with Enterprise Compliance Management Software

Today enterprises, both big and small, need to conform to various regulations in order to make their business environment safe and secure. Let's look at some important regulations, the need for compliance with these regulations, and the means of achieving compliance.

Today enterprises, both big and small, need to conform to various regulations in order to make their business environment safe and secure. Let's look at some important regulations, the need for compliance with these regulations, and the means of achieving compliance.

HIPAA Compliance 
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)was enacted at a time when the healthcare system was rampant with fraud and abuse. When it started getting out of control, the federal government had to step in not only to protect patient information but also to defend interests of the workers, when they change or lose their jobs. HIPAA compliance is necessary for any person or institution that directly or indirectly deals with patient health information (PHI).

ISO 27002 Compliance 
With most of the transactions happening online, there is a huge risk of data being compromised. If the enterprise fails to implement effective security measures, it leads to data breaches and data thefts.One such incident is enough for the enterprise to lose its reputation and goodwill. ISO 27002 compliance helps the enterprises in proving that information security practices are stringently followed and that their information is secure in accordance with an internationally recognized standard. 

GLBA Compliance 
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was enacted to "enhance competition in the financial services industry by providing a prudential framework for the affiliation of banks, securities firms, and other financial service providers, and for other purposes."Besides, it also protects the consumers' nonpublic information or personally identifiable information. GLBA compliance is necessary as it safeguards information from foreseeable threats in security and data integrity. 

PCI Compliance 
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), an information security standard for organizations that handle cardholder information,was enacted to reduce credit card fraud via its exposure. PCI DSS compliance is necessary since one slip or compromise could result in huge financial and brand-image losses .

Today' business environment is highly volatile and therefore enterprises have no other go but to conform to these regulations. This can be easily done with the help of enterprise compliance management software that includes all of the security and IT-GRC functions required to achieve compliance. It simplifies and reduces the time required for regulatory compliance and certification processes, while providing complete end-to-end automation of all security, compliance, audit, and IT risk management needs.

Hence, enterprises must invest in effective compliance management solution, as it not only helps them to meet appropriate IT compliance requirements but also to focus on their core business.

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Prevent Security Breaches with Vulnerability Management Solutions

Today enterprises face danger not only from external but also from internal sources. With cyber criminals always on the lookout for vulnerabilities, loopholes, and weaknesses in procedures, processes, and systems to make quick money, enterprises need to ensure that all loopholes and vulnerabilities within the enterprise are plugged. Hence, what is required is a proactive approach because proactively managing vulnerabilities will reduce the potential for misuse and involve considerably less time and effort than responding after exploitation has occurred.
Wikipedia defines vulnerability management as “the cyclical practice of identifying, classifying, remediating, and mitigating vulnerabilities”. Vulnerability management is not a one-time solution for an enterprise’s security issues. Nor it is a solution for protecting only digital information. Instead, it is an ongoing process to protect an enterprise’s valuable data, customer information, critical network assets, and intellectual property. In simple terms,  vulnerability management involves protection of not only digital information and the physical hardware assets in which they reside, but also the non-digital and intangible assets. Hence, asset management is an important aspect of vulnerability management that includes the discovery, identification and classification of hardware assets such as servers, desktops, laptops, etc. and business information assets whether tangible or intangible,of any organization.
Moreover, in today’s increasingly regulated and compliance driven business environment, enterprises need effective solutions not only to counter the growing number of security threats but also to comply with the increasing number of stringent regulations. Compliance with regulatory directives such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS),Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) and so on are very essential for enterprises to avoid penalties.
Hence, enterprises must invest in a good vulnerability and compliance management solution that ensures not just effective IT compliance and vulnerability management but also asset management. This helps enterprises to
  • Manage the functions, data and tasks associated with assets and related vulnerabilities
  • Identify potentially exploitable vulnerabilities in network infrastructure
  • Detect, prioritize and address complex IT risks
  • Map assets and vulnerabilities to regulations
Vulnerability management is not something to be done after a security breach has occurred but it is a way to prevent security breaches from occurring. Hence, enterprises, irrespective of big or small, must put in place an effective vulnerability management solution to keep the cyber criminals at bay.


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