The United States Federal Trade Commission’s mandate is to prevent fraud and promote consumer protection in today's interconnected world, where the digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. The FTC recognizes the importance of safeguarding consumer information and has implemented their Safeguards Rule as a means to ensure that businesses protect sensitive data from unauthorized access and misuse. Let’s take a look at the Safeguards Rule and what you need to know about it in regard to your business. 

Compliance is a critical element of many businesses’ requirements, with pretty severe penalties as a consequence if the prescribed standards are not met. Even more importantly, most compliance requirements and regulations are put in place for the welfare of not only the business, but its clientele as well. This makes it critical to know which apply to your business, and how to meet them fully.

Regardless of your industry, there are going to be certain regulatory standards that you will be responsible for upholding. Many of these standards will be related in some way to your cybersecurity. Let’s talk about some of these cybersecurity standards, and why compliance is so critical for your business.

Considering what today’s cyberthreat environment looks like, more and more rigorous cybersecurity is strictly needed. One means that businesses have to accomplish this is a cybersecurity practice known as a zero-trust model.

Let’s go over what zero-trust entails, and how to put it in place.

Some industries require more compliance than others, as they deal with sensitive data on a regular basis. In efforts to protect this data, governments and agencies have implemented laws, regulations, and other requirements to ensure businesses remain compliant with this expectation.

Despite what detractors say, regulations are in place for good reason. They typically protect individuals from organizational malfeasance. Many of these regulations are actual laws passed by a governing body and cover the entire spectrum of the issue, not just the data involved. The ones that have data protection regulations written into them mostly deal with the handling and protection of sensitive information. For organizations that work in industries covered by these regulations there are very visible costs that go into compliance. Today, we look at the costs incurred by these organizations as a result of these regulations, and how to ascertain how they affect your business.