Compliance as a Service

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require health-related organizations to protect information by ensuring patient privacy. The rules of HIPAA are to:

• Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all electronically protected health information your organization creates, receives, maintains, or transmits.
• Identify and protect against reasonably anticipated threats to the security or integrity of the information.
• Protect against reasonably anticipated, impermissible uses or disclosures.
• Ensure compliance by your workforce.

The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act was enforced in 2002 to improve the financial reporting systems of publicly traded corporations and to increase the accountability of their top executives. In order to stay compliant with SOX, publicly-traded corporations must at a minimum:

• Require corporate executives to sign financial reports to confirm they are accurately presented.
• Protect their data diligently to ensure financial reports are not using inaccurate and/or tampered with data.
• Create safeguards that can be verified by external auditors and report any security breaches affecting finances.
• Enforce controls on access to confidential financial data. The company must detect any data tampering quickly and take steps to reduce the negative consequences of these problems.
• Include information about the reach and effectiveness of the security control procedures in the financial reports.
• Save paper and digital records for no less than five years.
• Remind executives of the consequences of destroying, damaging, hiding, and falsifying documents relevant to a legal investigation. If auditors discover intent to obstruct or influence the investigation, the company will be fined heavily and the liable executives can get up to 20 years of imprisonment.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce credit card fraud. All businesses that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information must do so in a secure environment. In order to stay compliant with PCI, mandated organizations must:

• Build and maintain a secure network
• Protect cardholder data
• Maintain a vulnerability management program
• Implement strong access control measures
• Regularly monitor and test networks
• Maintain an information security policy

The United States Arms Export Control Act, or ITAR, regulates the export of defense-related articles and services from the United States. Any business that falls under the purview of ITAR must comply with its regulations, which can be onerous.

ITAR applies to a wide range of businesses, including manufacturers and sellers of firearms, ammunition, and military equipment; companies that provide defense consulting or engineering services; and entities that process or store classified information. Failure to comply with ITAR can result in significant fines and even criminal penalties.

SOC compliance is a process that ensures that a business meets the specific security requirements as outlined by the Service Organization Control (SOC) framework. The SOC framework was created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and is used to assess the effectiveness of a service organization’s internal controls. There are three types of SOC reports: SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3.

SOC 1 reports are used by auditors to assess a service organization’s system controls as they relate to financial statement reporting. SOC 2 reports are used by auditors to assess a service organization’s system controls as they relate to specific Trust Principles, which include security, privacy, availability, and processing integrity. SOC 3 reports are used by organizations to provide transparency regarding their management of Trust Principles and how these principles have been implemented.

Any business that processes, stores, or transmits data that could impact the security or privacy of its customers is required to be SOC compliant. This includes businesses in the healthcare, financial services, retail, and education industries.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a government agency that regulates the securities industry in the United States. The SEC has a number of rules and regulations that businesses must comply with in order to issue and trade securities.

Businesses that are required to be SEC compliant include publicly traded companies, investment banks, and broker-dealers. The SEC has a number of rules that these businesses must follow, including rules about financial reporting, corporate governance, and insider trading.

The SEC has been increasingly focused on enforcement in recent years, and has issued a number of high-profile fines against businesses that have violated its rules. Compliance with SEC regulations is critical for businesses that want to avoid penalties and protect their reputation.