Highlights:

  • Data security looks after the processes and technologies that define how you protect data and shield against a breach. Data compliance, on the other hand, ensures you meet legally-mandated standards.
  • GDPR is the most-wide and newest General Data Protection Regulation. Coming into force on May 25th, 2018, highlighted how companies should go about data processing.

Introduction

The organizations face numerous challenges like low productivity, limited innovation, disconnection between co-workers, etc. These are all generalized challenges. Yet when data compliance expands and becomes more complex, it becomes a more specialized challenge. Because of its severity in the corporate sector, more and more attention is being drawn to this particular concern.

There are numerous security threats which include:

  • Malware
  • Ransomware
  • Phishing
  • Third-party exposure
  • Poor cyber hygiene
  • Cloud vulnerabilities

Organizations are not wholly immune from experiencing any cyber outage. It means complying with cybersecurity rules and regulations is necessary for organizations. SMBs or small and medium-scale companies do not prioritize compliance that much, as a result such companies become a primary target for hackers. SMBs get exploited by hackers many times, uncovering their vulnerabilities.

Data breaches can often create sturdy situations where an organization’s reputation comes at stake with a considerable financial loss. The legal proceeding and disputes arising from a breach are usual in organizations. So, compliance can be certified as a remarkable component of the cybersecurity activity of an organization.

Many nations and states are coming together to discuss their data security concerns. Regulatory compliance is becoming an in-demand topic to talk about nationally and internationally.

Talking particularly about compliance, the latest industry standards and regulations have made compliance more challenging in the business world. Compliance is not only a set of rules or regulations but a way to protect your organization from cyber-attacks and hackers.

A successful organization must completely follow all the regulatory norms that come with compliance. But for sure, compliance largely came into the picture after the adaptation of the EU’s GDPR in 2018. This document was the most comprehensive to date. It is not just comprehensive in its coverage of cybersecurity laws but is also widely recognized internationally.

After looking at the graph of security compliance evolution, its effects, and upcoming challenges, it is clear that 2023 will be a year of the spotlight for security compliance.

Let’s have a close view of what different elements will bring security compliance into the spotlight.

  • The ultimate data privacy fines are grabbing attention:

Multiple international companies violated the GDPR’s rules, and hefty fines were imposed on them. In this bucket list, Amazon tops the overall index and is forced to pay a fine of USD 780 million. WhatsApp is the second to submit the penalty of USD 247 million. Google Ireland and Facebook have taken their seats on the list to pay the fine of USD 99 million and USD 66 million, respectively.

Clearly, this will significantly harm these giant companies’ reputations. Organizations will collectively fight against the situation and maintain compliance because no organization would want its name flashing on top for such a hostile act.

  • The confusion created by various laws:

It is time taking and costlier process to achieve compliance. It is not like randomly checking boxes and saying that data in transit is encrypted. Just asserting that security procedures are in place is ineffective. The tough task is demonstrating compliance. Blindly nominating yourself as compliant will fall you into the trap. Hence, organizations need to make a clear difference between security and compliance. Confusion between these two terms will be dangerous in a long run.

The second thing is the need to clarify numerous data privacy laws more distinctly. Data privacy regulation and action plans for addressing them differ from one law to other law.

The confusion created by laws in differently defining “sensitive data” adds more fuel to the fire. The worst part comes when the companies operate both stateside and internationally.

Some laws seem to be favorable for consumers, and some for businesses. Ex. Utah Consumer Privacy Act UCPA favors businesses; and CPRA offers more favoritism to consumers. In actuality, confusion increases as we go deeper into this topic.

Sadly, the attack surface is changing every year; things are difficult nowadays while maintaining compliance and attackers, for that matter.

  • The usage of data has substantially been changed by enterprises:

As the saying goes, ‘Data is king’. Every company uses data, irrespective of which industry it is working for. Daily data production is increasing with the improvement of computing software and hardware.

There are two types of data storage, namely on-premises and cloud storage. On-premises means data is used to store on local servers or other devices. A company purchases any server places it at headquarters, and uploads the data. A server that operates locally; is called on-premises data storage. But as a matter of fact, it is costlier. If your company has six servers, you must pay USD 4,386 per year.

However, cloud data storage stores data on remote servers or hardware that a service provider maintains. The service providers usually sell the data usage, storage, and bandwidth to organizations. As you can see, cloud data storage is way cheaper than on-premises solutions. Data privacy is the biggest reason behind this. Your data is not safe with third parties, so it’s cheaper.

Today, data sharing and analytics are critical activities for any business. Data extraction, transformation, load, or simply data movements create a real barrier to complying with data privacy laws. The balance between data utilization and data protection creates concern among technology leaders.

Due to this, compliance is grabbing extensive attention and will undoubtedly be the most discussed and a prioritized topic. Organizations that are proactive in their security and data compliance activities will find themselves sorted in 2023. But more is needed; there is a need to utilize the tools or processes to look beyond compliance. There should be a proper understanding of data protection in case the current laws are modified, and a new one is introduced. The companies that balance these things will find their ship sailing in the right direction.

Data privacy compliance is not a time-limited aspect; it will be here until businesses don’t become fully compliant. Data compliance is not optional at all.

  • Cloud migration left companies vulnerable to non-compliance:

Every organization is primely focusing on reputation-building. Conversely, the cloud migration process includes transferring data, business elements, and applications into a cloud computing environment. Cloud environments are scalable, reliable, cost-effective, and unfailingly available.

Moreover, there are different types of cloud migrations available in the market. One that will be transferring data and applications from an on-premise data center to the cloud is a shared cloud migration. The second is transferring data and applications between cloud platforms. This is a cloud-to-cloud migration.

The potential risk faced by companies that are moving to the cloud is a security risk. There are several kinds of security risks; that includes compliance violations, accidental errors, external malware attacks, contractual breaches to insecure APIs, and many more.

The pandemic wreak havoc not only for people but also for businesses. The cloud migration that unfolded during the pandemic created ill compliance-related effects. Many businesses underestimated security concerns as companies needed to shift overnight from an office setup to a virtual workplace. Businesses were required to stand out in that difficult time, so they focused on surveillance over security. This left their data unprotected, and the data got badly exposed-subsequently putting them out of compliance and its approach. Today, many enterprises continuously try to ensure that their cloud activities align with data privacy laws and regulations. They must comply with this; the business knows it very well.

  • Data privacy laws are expanding like never before

Many nations are coming up with numerous legislations for data privacy. The EU’s GDPR has started this list. The U.S.-based companies operating locally and internationally must carefully and quickly evaluate all the data security measures. Their global reach necessitates them to comply with various multi-national privacy regulations.

The U.S.-based companies also provide full attention, which involves domestic businesses only. The U.S. does not have a national data privacy referendum till now.

California, with its California consumer privacy act (CCPA), enacted a privacy law in 2018. It will become a stricter version of it. The new name will be California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) IN 2023.

In 2022, three states, namely Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, have introduced privacy laws. The four states, Utah, Virginia, Connecticut, and Colorado, will soon start enforcing state legislation in 2023. Many companies have at least one data privacy law, and those who do not have such regulations are planning to do so.

Bottom Line

Modern technology helps organizations meet data compliance more effectively than past. You can achieve data compliance by using the right tools and following the right procedures. It will help you concentrate more on your product/services, avoid hefty fines and penalties, and show everyone you are a trusted entity.