In all businesses, no matter the industry, compliance audits are essential to ensuring companies are acting in accordance with the regulations set forth by governments and standards councils/organizations. When violations are discovered, there are often heavy penalties that follow. Not only can you be fined, but it can also damage your reputation if your business fails to comply with specific regulations.
Compliance audits can be related to, but aren’t limited to the following standards, regulations, and laws:
Compliance audits help to create a clear line of communication between all team members in an organization. It also ensures visibility into regulatory guidelines and the organization's respect for the procedures. There are no departments exempt when it comes to passing an audit. For a business to meet and exceed various compliance regulations, the whole company, including the IT team, should get prepared. That said, below we’re sharing some advice for how to pass an IT compliance audit.
How to Pass An Audit
1. Start with an internal self-assessment
Regardless of the standards you’re trying to be in compliance with, before an audit occurs, you should be regularly doing self-assessments to ensure your company is compliant. Better to do this and find the flaws before a penalty like a hefty fine can be issued, after all.
Which regulations does your company need to be in compliance with?
The various dealings and nature of your business can have an impact on which audits you may face. For example, if you never deal with California residents, you may not need to worry about the CCPA. Likewise, if you’re serving customers in the United States, and not anyone residing in the European Union, you will likely be in the clear for any potential GDPR compliance audits. Click here to see the differences between GDPR vs CCPA compliance.
By that same token, financial planners may have different standards they are held to than doctors. In other words, only the standards councils and laws that are directly related to your business are ones you need to worry about. And, yes, your company can be impacted by multiple regulations, laws, standards, etc... depending on the nature of your business. For example, billing companies that handle cardholder data and medical records could face both PCI-DSS and HIPAA audits.
Look for gaps in compliance
As the gaps are found, they should be patched as quickly as possible. An example of this would be finding that your cardholder data is not secure at a single point within a business process. In this case, if you were to be audited for compliance, your business would fail the PCI DSS Compliance standards.
2. Run an access check
A big mistake many companies make is forgetting to delete access credentials when employees leave the company. Another is giving their employees too much access. In the case of a HIPAA audit, a receptionist having access to medical records for all patients when they don’t need to could be grounds for failing to be compliant.
Consider all of your employees, and determine what access levels they actually need, and act accordingly. This could mean segmenting them into groups so they only see things relevant to their specific job. While you’re running this check, delete users that are no longer with the company such as ex employees, old vendors, employees that have moved to other departments, etc…
Run these access checks at least quarterly. If you have a lot of employee or vendor turnover, doing monthly access checks may be more beneficial.
3. Keep thorough records
It’s critical that you have records of things like logins to determine when users were accessing data. It’s also wise to have documentation for changes in security/business processes. Digital and physical paper trails can go a long way in proving compliance.
4. Track the latest regulations
“I didn’t know” is no excuse when being audited. It is your company’s responsibility to keep up with the latest regulations for the standards councils, laws, and regulations that impact your business. As new regulations are enforced, you must ensure that your company is still in compliance. And, when you make a change, be sure to document it for your records.
5. Implement training for everyone associated with your company
From your vendors to your shareholders, employees to your executives - implement training related to compliance so all relevant personnel are aware of how to pass a compliance audit. This may mean teaching your team about security protocols for storing and accessing financial or health data. It could also mean impressing upon your team the importance of using strong passwords that are changed regularly, refraining from allowing unauthorized users into the building, being mindful of phishing emails, and so on.
Passing an Audit is About Being Prepared
The real key to passing an audit, is to simply be prepared as if your company could be audited at any moment. While it may feel like an unnecessary step, particularly if you’ve not been audited for compliance to date, it’s still a good practice. If nothing else, staying audit ready will ensure you are performing optimally for the safety and security of your employees, your clients, shareholders, vendors, etc…
Schedule a free strategy session with Rivial Security or get a full Cybersecurity assessment today. We’ll do the heavy lifting to give you confidence and peace of mind.
Lucas Hathaway: 22 Apr 2024
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Randy Lindberg