Enterprise Architect
According to InformationWeek, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has prompted states across the U.S. to tighten their own data compliance regulations. With these new regulations and companies increasingly moving data and workloads to the cloud, ensuring that the cloud is secure and compliant has become more important — and more challenging — than ever.
Organizations need to be proactive about meeting compliance challenges. Developing a compliance strategy and conducting internal audits are two ways to be smart about compliance. However, staying compliant in today’s risk landscape can be a complex process.
Here’s a look at 5 compliance problems your company should be concerned about and the questions you should be asking to solve them.
1) Lack of visibility into data
Where is data being stored and what type of data is it?
When your company stores data for many years, figuring out who the information belongs to, what it is, and its business relevance becomes difficult. Data may be stored in multiple cloud instances, and cloud storage is dynamic, making information difficult to track and manage. The data being stored may be structured or unstructured and could contain personally identifiable and sensitive information, which requires strict access controls that vary according to industry.
2) Unclear accountability for data security and regulatory compliance
Who is responsible for protecting and securing data and ensuring compliance?
When data is being stored in the cloud, it creates confusion about who is responsible for security, risk management, and compliance. Is your company accountable for compliance problems or is the cloud provider? For the purpose of compliance audits, records need to be kept of access attempts and how your data is being consumed. The responsible party must keep these records and have policies in place to prevent unauthorized access.
3) Stealth attacks on company systems
Have your company’s systems been breached without your knowing?
Not all cyberattacks are immediately apparent. Cyber criminals may infiltrate your systems and lurk around in them for months before you detect a breach. By that time, it’s hard to tell how much data has been stolen or compromised. This data may include sensitive financial and healthcare information — such as credit card information, health insurance coverage, and medical history — that can be used to commit fraud.
4) Changing compliance regulations
What are the new regulations for your industry and how might they affect you?
Compliance regulations are continuously changing, and noncompliance can result in huge fines. Regulations vary according to industry and may change at the state level. For example, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations, which require that customers be notified of what information will be collected about them, were recently expanded. Other compliance regulations include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) for finance, and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for retail.
5) Rapid data growth
Is your company keeping up with the compliance requirements of large volumes of data?
Today, data is being generated in larger volumes at a faster rate than in the past. Endpoints, such as connected devices in internet of things (IoT) environments, constantly create streams of data that can be used to control assets and understand business processes. Your company must right-size storage to meet the capacity and regulatory compliance demands of these data volumes.
Out-of-the-Box Industry Compliance
These data compliance issues underscore how difficult it can be to follow regulations and avoid penalties. However, there is a way to meet these challenges simply and cost-efficiently.
NetApp Cloud Compliance is an out-of-the-box solution that makes it easy to meet industry compliance regulations. Cloud Compliance has built-in data privacy controls that are driven by artificial intelligence, creating a privacy-ready cloud environment. The solution maintains visibility into your sensitive data and generates the necessary compliance reports.
More Information:
As a NetApp Star partner, Mainline delivers enterprise storage solutions that are efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. Our top-level partnership assures clients that we maintain the stringent Star partner certification requirements across the NetApp storage family of products, plus we are backed by a strong relationship with the NetApp team.
Mainline can provide an expert perspective on the problem of cloud data compliance. We are cloud agnostic, so we don’t care where you run your workloads, as long as your company stays secure and compliant.
For more information on how we can help you, contact your Mainline Account Representative directly, or reach out to us here with any questions.
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