What kind of compliance requirements are there for cloud-based data? As a business owner, it is your responsibility to know where and how data is stored. How do you maintain compliance when you may have little control over how your data is managed and maintained?
Can You Stay Compliant In Cloud?
If you are working with managed technology provider, they should be able to have a comfortable and informative conversation with you on how compliance impacts you and your business.
Do you need to establish and maintain compliance? Reach out to us for an introduction on how we’ve streamlined and codified the process for Canadian businesses.
The Cloud Can Be Tampered With
Concerns are legitimate around how cloud data is managed, maintained, stored, and transferred. The potential exists that data it can be changed or intercepted while it is in transit. This, data could be changed without the user’s knowledge. Those who are concerned about the legal ramifications of this should focus on learning who is hosting the data, how it is being maintained, how it is being transported from the hosting site to your infrastructure, and who can see this data. This line is further blurred by the differences between the public and private cloud. In other words, is your data being stored alongside someone else’s data? Are there partitions put into place that limit access based on role and organization? The question of security is of the utmost importance and will be a major point that you’ll need to hit for compliance’s sake.
What Can You Do?
Using the above statements as a springboard, you’ll need to think about how your business plans on securing cloud-based data and ensuring its compliance with any regulations your organization is beholden to. You start by first assessing just how deep into cloud computing your organization actually is. Depending on the importance of certain data, you may decide that a combination of private and public cloud platforms present the ideal solution. For sensitive information, an internal network or private cloud is ideal, while less sensitive or important data is stored elsewhere.
Canada’s compliance deadline is November 1st, 2018. Are you ready?
Next, you’ll need to consider who is managing this data, and what kind of agreements you will have to make to guarantee its safety. Is it being managed by an in-house department or a third party? If it’s a third party, for example, you’ll need to determine responsibilities and consequences of failing to adhere to compliance guidelines. It’s also important that you know what types of security and backup solutions are being used to protect your assets.
Since your organizational reputation and integrity is on the line, your best bet is to find a way to design, deploy, and support a private cloud solution onsite for any data that could possibly be subject to regulatory compliance. Otherwise, you may find that any cloud-hosting company or colocation service won’t have your immediate needs top of mind.
COMPANYNAME can help your business get started with a Security Posture Assessment to determine where you’re at today and what steps need to be taken to ensure you have the right policies, procedures and documentation your business needs. To learn more, reach out to us today at PHONENUMBER.
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