Top 10 Sprinto Alternatives in 2023 that You Must Try

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Cloud compliance software solutions, nowadays, play a transformative role in empowering businesses through digital expansion while ensuring security practices conform to global data regulations.

Sprinto is one such platform that has made significant strides in this space.

However, before you finalize your purchase decision, it is prudent to explore other competing options to ensure you choose the most suitable solution for your business needs.

For this reason, we have curated a list of 10 alternatives to Sprinto that warrant your consideration. In our comprehensive overview, you will find essential details such as key features, pricing plans, and additional information about each alternative, empowering you to make an educated decision.

Let’s dive in.

Top 10 Sprinto Alternatives: Key Features, Pricing Plans, and More

Here are the top 10 alternatives to Sprinto that we have shortlisted for you:

Cyber Sierra
Scrut Automation
Secureframe
Vanta
Drata
AuditBoard
Wiz
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud
Druva Data Resiliency Cloud
Duo Security

Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Cyber Sierra

Cyber Sierra is an enterprise-grade cybersecurity platform designed to empower security professionals by streamlining security controls, risk assessment, and vendor relationships. By leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, Cyber Sierra offers comprehensive insights into risks, vulnerabilities, and compliance, enabling proactive decision-making.

Cyber Sierra solves the complexity of having multiple governance, cybersecurity, and insurance solutions by integrating them into interoperable modules in one platform to optimize performance and efficacy.

Key features

Unified governance: Comply with globally recognized compliance standards like ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, and PDPA.
Cybersecurity: Identify and assess security risks in the context of your assets.
Employee awareness programs: Train your employees to recognize and avoid phishing attempts.
Third-party risk management: Seamless filling of security questionnaires for your vendors and continuous risk monitoring.

Strengths

Holistic solution: Combines governance, risk, cybersecurity compliance, cyber insurance, threat intelligence and employee training in one platform.
Continuous controls monitoring: Provides continuous controls monitoring, risk assessment and proactive threat management.
Effective vendor risk management: Streamlines the process of managing third-party vendors and mitigating third-party risks.

Weaknesses

The platform is relatively new in the market.

Best for

Cyber Sierra is best for established enterprises and mid-to-late-stage startups dealing with regulatory compliance, data security and compliance issues.

The platform is also immensely effective for enterprises looking to streamline their cybersecurity, governance, and insurance processes from multiple vendors to one intelligent platform.

2. Scrut Automation

Scrut Automation is a cloud security platform that strongly focuses on automating cloud configuration testing. It’s designed to provide robust layers of cloud-native defense for AWS, Azure, GCP, and more.

Key features

Automated cloud configurations testing: Scrut Automation automatically tests your cloud configurations against 150+ CIS benchmarks.
Historical records: It builds a historical record of your security state to track improvement over time.
Integration: Seamless integration with popular cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

Strengths

In-depth security coverage: Able to protect your cloud environment with over 150 CIS benchmarks.
Time-efficient: Automates time-consuming tasks and prioritizes remediations to speed up your information security progression.

Weaknesses

Learning curve: Navigating and understanding certain functionalities may take time, especially for users new to cloud security settings.
Limited customization: While Scrut Automation offers a capable cloud security platform, there might be limited options for customization and personalization according to specific user requirements.

Best for

Scrut Automation is ideal for organizations utilizing cloud computing services from AWS, Azure, GCP, and other similar platforms. They provide extensive security and compliance coverage, making it apt for large enterprises that require robust cloud security.

However, medium and smaller businesses that aim to fortify their cloud security and prefer an automated process would benefit.

3. Secureframe

Secureframe is a compliance platform that allows companies to streamline SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance. Their solution focuses on providing effective, continuous monitoring across various services, such as AWS, GCP, and Azure.

Key features

Compliance monitoring: Allows for continuous compliance across a range of services.
Automation: Streamlines security compliance tasks to reduce the time and resources necessary.
Integration capabilities: Works seamlessly with popular cloud services like AWS, GCP, and Azure.

Strengths

Time efficiency: Greatly reduces the time spent documenting and monitoring compliance, which often takes weeks.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with popular cloud services, which may benefit companies utilizing these platforms.

Weaknesses

Limited customization: Some users have mentioned a need for more advanced customization options, meaning it may not be as flexible as some companies might need.

Best for

Secureframe is best for companies of any size that need to streamline their SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance. The platform is especially useful for businesses that use AWS, GCP, and Azure for their cloud services due to its advanced integration capabilities.

4. Vanta

Vanta is a security and compliance management platform that simplifies SOC 2 compliance. Vanta helps automate security and compliance processes by continuously monitoring a company’s technology environment, reducing the time and resources necessary to achieve SOC 2 certification.

Key features

Continuous monitoring: Vanta offers continuous security monitoring to ensure real-time compliance.
Automation: Streamlines and automates compliance efforts for a faster and more efficient SOC 2 certification.
Integration: Seamless integration with commonly used services and platforms, such as AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.

Strengths

Time efficiency: Reduces the time and effort required to achieve SOC 2 compliance, saving companies valuable resources.
Integration: Integrates easily with numerous popular platforms, making it adaptable to various technology environments.

Weaknesses

Limited scope: Vanta specializes in SOC 2 compliance, meaning it may not cover other security frameworks or standards that some businesses might require.
Customization: Limited customization options may make it less flexible for businesses with unique compliance needs.

Best for

Vanta is an ideal solution for mid-sized to large businesses, particularly those operating in industries where stringent security compliance standards are necessary. These could include the Tech, Healthcare, or Finance sectors – where adherence to security compliance standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI and GDPR is required.

5. Drata

Drata is a security and compliance management platform that helps companies to achieve and maintain SOC 2 compliance. Drata automates the process of tracking, managing, and monitoring the technical and operational controls required for SOC 2 certification, streamlining the overall audit experience.

Key features

Asset management: Drata helps companies identify and track all their assets (servers, devices, applications) making it easier to manage them effectively.
Policy & procedure templates: Drata provides pre-built templates for policies and procedures that a company can use to quickly create their internal compliance documentation.
User access reviews: Drata further provides capabilities to ensure that access controls are observed, with recurrent user access reviews.
Security training: Drata also provides regular employee training and phishing simulations to ensure that the entire team is aware of the latest security threats and practices.

Strengths

Automated evidence collection: Drata automates evidence collection, lessening manual effort and reducing the risk of human error.
Strong customer support: A responsive and knowledgeable support team provides valuable guidance throughout the compliance process.

Weaknesses

Onboarding process: Some users find Drata’s onboarding process lengthy or complex, which might lead to a slower initial setup..
Broad functionality might make it complicated for non-technical users.
Scalability: As a relatively new platform, Drata may experience challenges scaling up to accommodate larger enterprises with complex compliance needs.
Pricing: Drata’s pricing structure might be difficult for smaller businesses on a limited budget.

Best for

Drata is an excellent choice for organizations looking to achieve and maintain SOC 2 compliance while minimizing manual work. Its automation capabilities are valuable for businesses seeking a streamlined audit experience.

6. AuditBoard

AuditBoard is a complete, user-friendly audit, risk, and compliance management platform. It aids companies in managing detailed audits, compliance, and risk management operations, featuring seamless accessibility and collaboration capabilities.

Key features

Integrated control management: AuditBoard facilitates comprehensive audit management, including risk assessment, control test management, issue tracking, and reporting.
Operational auditing: It provides an integrated tools suite for performing internal and operational audits efficiently and easily.
Risk assessment: The platform enables effortless identification and management of risks throughout all the organization’s sectors.
Real-time reporting: AuditBoard provides real-time insights and custom reports for auditing progress tracking and issue resolution.

Strengths

Ease of use: AuditBoard is recognized for its user-friendly interface, simplifying audit and risk assessment activities.
Collaboration: With its effective collaboration tools, AuditBoard enhances communication between internal teams and external auditors.

Weaknesses

Customer Support: Some customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the effectiveness and responsiveness of AuditBoard’s customer support.
Less intuitive navigation: Some users find the system navigation somewhat complex, specifically when handling multiple projects simultaneously.
Expensive: The available features come with a notable price tag, which might not be affordable for small or medium-sized enterprises.

Best for

AuditBoard is ideally suited for large corporations seeking a robust, comprehensive audit and risk management solution. It’s an outstanding tool for firms conducting regular internal and operational audits and those requiring real-time insights into their audit and risk processes.

7. Wiz

Wiz is a cloud security solution that offers businesses a comprehensive view of security risks across their entire cloud environment. This next-generation Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tool goes beyond agent-based solutions by scanning the entire cloud stack for potential vulnerabilities configuration issues, and identifying hidden threats.

Key features

360-degree visibility: Wiz provides all-round visibility of entire multi-cloud environments, giving a centralized view of security issues.
Intelligent remediation: It identifies vulnerabilities and offers actionable insights to mitigate security risks.
Collaborative: Wiz promotes collaboration among DevOps, cloud infrastructure, and security teams through a single platform.
Continuous security monitoring: Wiz monitors cloud environments in real-time to identify and alert users of any security issues or misconfigurations.

Strengths

Comprehensive: Wiz offers a holistic security assessment covering all major cloud platforms.
Effective automation: Role automation and easy-to-read dashboards promote effective security processes.
Easy to set up and use: Users report that Wiz is simple to execute, with minimal configuration requirements.

Weaknesses

Limited documentation: Some users have noted that Wiz’s documentation could be more comprehensive and detailed.
Lack of clarity on pricing: A few reviewers have mentioned that pricing information is not readily available, making it difficult to determine the cost of implementing Wiz.
Possibly overwhelming notifications: As Wiz monitors cloud environments, some users may find the notifications’ frequency overwhelming.

Best for

Wiz is ideally suited for businesses operating in multi-cloud environments and those who value a comprehensive, holistic view of their cloud security posture. Its ability to provide a centralized security view benefits companies with complex cloud infrastructure.

8. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that integrates backup, disaster recovery, AI-based malware, ransomware protection, remote assistance, and security into one platform. It’s designed to offer a multi-layered approach to protect data across various devices and environments.

Key features

Backup and disaster recovery: Acronis ensures your data is always safe with its backup solution, offering disaster recovery options if a major issue arises.
Cyber security: The platform employs AI and machine learning techniques to detect and respond to new threats.
Patch management: It identifies and automatically updates outdated software versions to reduce vulnerability risks.
Remote assistance: Acronis provides remote assistance, allowing users and administrators to address issues from any location quickly.

Strengths

Comprehensive Protection: Provides multi-layered protection by integrating backup, security, and disaster recovery.
Ease of Use: The platform is praised for its user-friendly interface and straightforward navigation.
Reliable Backup and Recovery: Acronis is reliable for data backup and recovery, with many users expressing satisfaction with its performance in this area.

Weaknesses

Potential performance issues: Some users have reported that the application can become sluggish, especially during heavy backup processes.
Technical support: Some customers have reported delays and less satisfactory experiences with the support team.
Lack of detailed reports: Some clients have highlighted that the reporting feature could be more robust, offering greater detail for comprehensive analysis.

Best for

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is especially recommended for businesses prioritizing a strong holistic cybersecurity posture. Considering its comprehensive nature, it is a beneficial solution for businesses across various sectors like IT, retail, healthcare, finance, and any other industry where data security is paramount.

9. Druva Data Resiliency Cloud

Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is a SaaS-based data protection and management solution that offers secure backup, disaster recovery, and information governance across various environments, such as endpoints, data centers, and cloud applications.

Key features

Unified data protection: Druva delivers reliable, integrated backup and recovery solutions for endpoints, data centers, and SaaS applications.
Disaster recovery: It provides a simple, fast, cost-effective method for on-demand disaster recovery.
Global deduplication: Druva’s global deduplication allows efficient storage and bandwidth usage, reducing costs and speeding up backups.
Security and compliance: The solution ensures data protection in compliance with various regulations like GDPR by providing encryption, access control, and audit trails.

Strengths

SaaS deployment: As a SaaS-based solution, Druva is easy to deploy, maintain, and scale, reducing the burden on IT teams.
Efficient data management: Druva provides a centralized console for managing data protection tasks across various environments, simplifying data management processes.
Cost-effective: It eliminates hardware and infrastructure costs, resulting in a more cost-effective solution.
Customer support: Druva receives positive reviews for its responsive and helpful customer support.

Weaknesses

Performance on large data sets: There are reports of decreased performance when handling massive data sets, suggesting it may not be ideal for businesses with large-scale data processing.
Complex pricing structure: Users have noted that the pricing structure can be difficult to understand and might not be transparent.

Best for

Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is an excellent solution for businesses of all sizes that seek a SaaS-based, cost-effective, and straightforward data protection service. It suits businesses with distributed environments, including endpoints and various data center applications.

However, businesses with large-scale data sets or specific customization needs may want to evaluate other options or test Druva’s performance before committing.

10. Duo Security

Duo Security, now part of Cisco, is a cloud-based access security platform protecting users, data, and applications from potential threats. It verifies users’ identities and the health of their devices before granting them access to applications, ensuring that they meet business security compliance requirements.

Key features

Two-factor authentication (2FA): Duo ensures secure access to networks and applications by requiring a second form of authentication besides the primary password.
Device trust: Duo provides insight into every device accessing your applications, ensuring they meet your security standards before granting access.
Adaptive authentication: It uses adaptive policies and machine learning to secure access based on user behavior and device insights.
Secure single sign-on (SSO): Users have seamless and secure access to all applications through Duo’s SSO feature.

Strengths

Ease of use: Duo is praised for its user-friendly interface and straightforward deployment.
Strong security: Duo’s two-factor authentication significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access.
Wide range of integration: Duo integrates easily with various existing VPNs, cloud-based applications, and other network infrastructure.
Customer support: Duo’s customer support is known for being responsive and effective.

Weaknesses

Limited granular control: Users seeking specific controls or advanced customization options may find Duo Security lacking granularity, especially in configuring policies.
Software updates: Occasionally, users have reported difficulties or temporary disruptions after implementing software updates.
Cost: Duo’s price structure may seem high for small businesses or startups.
User interface: While user-friendly, some users feel the interface could be modernized and visually more appealing.

Best for

As Duo works seamlessly with multiple applications and devices, organizations with diverse software portfolios will find value in its flexibility.

Top 10 Sprinto Alternatives: Comparative Analysis

Here’s a comparative analysis of the top 10 Sprinto alternatives, which should help you find the right software for your needs.

Top 10 Sprinto Alternatives: Comparative Analysis

Choosing The Best

Selecting the best software solution for your business can be a daunting task. However, you can easily find the right fit for your organization by evaluating the options based on key features, price points, and user experience.

While many enterprise-grade solutions are on the market today, Cyber Sierra is one of the few that converges a strong balance of functionality and security to a single platform. The platform is easy to use and offers a number of features that simplifies security processes even as it enables you to add layers of protection against cyber threats.

Book a demo to see how Cyber Sierra can help your business.

Srividhya Karthik

Srividhya Karthik is a seasoned content marketer and the Head of Marketing at Cyber Sierra. With a firm belief in the power of storytelling, she brings years of experience to create engaging narratives that captivate audiences. She also brings valuable insights from her work in the field of cybersecurity and compliance, possessing a deep understanding of the challenges and pain points faced by customers in these domains.

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HIPAA Compliance Checklist Guide for Automating the Process

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US$25 billion with a ‘b:’

25 billion dollars lost by healthcare sector

The healthcare sector lost all that to cyberattacks from 2020 to 2022 alone. To curb such losses, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) emerged in 1996. Unfortunately, almost two decades later, cybercriminals have only gotten smarter.

So responding to the growing threat landscape, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) continues to tighten enforcement with heftier fines. As a result, it no longer ends at attaining initial HIPAA compliance.

Security officers must now also automate the gruesome post-HIPAA compliance process to stay compliant and avoid fines.

And a good starting point is to…

Know the HIPAA Compliance Requirements

Being a US federal law, the HIPAA regulation has many requirements grouped under five main components or HIPAA rules.

As illustrated below:

HIPPA compliance

Correct implementation of requirements under each rule demonstrates that a company directly or indirectly accessing protected health information (PHI) is keeping it safe and secure. However, as earlier noted, you must continuously implement them to (1) become and (2) stay HIPAA-compliant.

This checklist guide walks you through how to achieve both. As we proceed, you’ll also see how Cyber Sierra automates implementation of crucial HIPAA rules and requirements.

Download your copy to follow along:

HIPAA Compliance Checklist

Become and stay HIPAA – compliant with our continuous HIPAA implementation checklist.

The 8-Step HIPAA Compliance Checklist

From determining HIPAA rules to developing policies and implementing safeguards, HIPAA compliance can be overwhelming. To help, we’ve broken the many moving parts into eight actionable steps in this checklist.

But before diving in, there are two company types —Covered Entities and Business Associates— that must comply with HIPAA regulations.

This infographic illustrates:

covered entities

As you’ll see throughout this checklist guide, where you fall into is crucial for gauging your company’s HIPAA compliance readiness.

Let’s dive in.

1. Determine What HIPAA Rules Applies to You

HIPAA’s Privacy Rule and Security Rule details what companies must do to protect PHI and electronic protected health information (ePHI). The Breach Notification Rule, on the other hand, details remediation steps organizations must take in response to a breach.

But not all companies must comply with them.

Covered Entities, for instance, must implement all safeguards dictated by the Privacy Rule and Security Rule. They are also mandated to protect both PHI and ePHI. This isn’t the case for Business Associates, even though some Privacy Rule requirements apply to them.

So the first step towards HIPAA compliance readiness is knowing what HIPAA rules apply to your organization.

Three things you should do are:

Understand the intention of each rule’s requirements.
Review the technical specifications required for each rule.
Outline the correct procedures, safeguards, and policies you should create and implement for your organization.

2. Appoint a HIPAA Compliance Officer

If that first step looks complex, it’s because it is.

Hence, the need to appoint someone on your security team to spearhead your company’s HIPAA compliance process. Some things this appointed officer (or consultant) will oversee include:

Determining applicable HIPAA rules and regulations
Ensuring the right controls and policies are in place
Conducting risk assessment to detect vulnerabilities
Training employees on HIPAA implementation
Enforcing the implementation of security controls and policies
Investigating incidents and data breaches
Developing action plans for remediating breaches
Implementing continuous monitoring to ensure that your organization stays HIPAA-compliant always.

Before we proceed…

Imagine your appointed HIPAA compliance officer (or maybe, you) could do most things highlighted above from one place. Imagine you had an interoperable cybersecurity platform that brings all the features for achieving the things above from one platform.

That’s where software like Cyber Sierra comes in:

Become ( and Stay) HIPAA – Compliant From One Place

Conduct risk assessments, train employees, implement controls, automate HIPAA compliance, and much more.

3. Develop Your HIPAA Compliance Policies

All HIPAA rules have mandatory requirements.

So for each rule that applies to your company, you need policies and procedures to show you meet those requirements. In other words, you must develop documentation that will prove your employees are handling PHI and ePHI data safely.

Across the three main HIPAA rules, some compulsory policies are:

develop your HIPAA compliance

Managing all these policy documents through email threads or spreadsheets can be draining.

But imagine a central place where you can:

Create policy documents
Upload evidence easily, and
Assign the implementation of each policy.

You can do all three things and more to automate most HIPAA compliance processes with Cyber Sierra:

HIPAA compliance dashboard

4. Manage Business Associates with Access to PHI

The HIPAA Security Rule mandates that Covered Entities working with a Business Associate or vice versa have a legally binding agreement. Known as a business associate agreement (BAA), this is to ensure the protection of PHI and ePHI accessed by both parties.

A BAA should cover all relevant topics. Examples of topics include permitted uses of PHI and ePHI, reporting unauthorized disclosures and uses, processes to return or remove PHI when terminating, etc.

We created a template to help with this.

Download (and customize) it to start creating your own BAA below:

Grab our customizable business associate agreement (BAA), free.

5. Implement HIPAA Security Rule Safeguards

Only the HIPAA Security Rule has over 50 implementation specifications. This makes complying with the rule a complex hurdle, requiring necessary safeguards. And the HIPAA groups these safeguards into three —administrative, physical, and technical.

Implementing them is a must. Without this, you can’t demonstrate your company protects PHI properly or become HIPAA-compliant.

So let’s briefly discuss each.

Administrative safeguards

These safeguards are needed to:

Train employees about PHI protections.
Resolve security incidents that may threaten PHI.
Protect PHI or ePHI during emergency situations.

Physical safeguards

These are safeguards to protect physical points of access to PHI. They outline how employees should manage their devices and workstations to keep sensitive health info secured. Company-wide, this safeguard enforces the use of surveillance technology and other measures for protecting physical access to PHI.

Technical safeguards

These are safeguards mandated to protect against unauthorized access or alteration to stored PHI or ePHI. Antivirus, data encryption, and multifactor authentication software are some common technical safeguard enforcement tools.

6. Conduct HIPAA Risk Assessments

This step of the HIPAA compliance process ensures the proper implementation of the HIPAA Security Rule safeguards —administrative, physical, and technical. It’s also how to identify vulnerabilities across your cloud and network environments.

Follow these steps to conduct a HIPAA risk assessment:

steps to conduct HIPAA assessment

Again, doing all these manually can be daunting, if not impossible. But with an interoperable cybersecurity platform like Cyber Sierra, you can breeze through the steps above from one place.

Connect your cloud assets, Kubernetes, repository, and network systems to Cyber Sierra, and our software will:

Automatically scan all connected tools and assets.
Detect risks and vulnerabilities to PHI data in real-time
Prioritize critical risks based on their likely threat levels.
Enable you to assign remediation tasks to members of your security team with tips on how they are to remediate risks:

assign remediation tasks to members of your security team with tips on how they are to remediate risks

7. Train Employees on HIPAA Risk Mitigation & Procedures

It takes a team to become HIPAA-compliant.

First, from implementing procedures to mitigating and remediating risks, you’re better off collaborating with a team of specialists. Also, any employee who accesses or handles PHI or ePHI is mandated to complete HIPAA compliance training. Both scenarios make training employees on HIPAA risk mitigation and procedures a necessity.

In short, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends ongoing refresher training for all employees.

With other compliance automation software, ticking off this crucial step of the HIPAA process requires investing in a separate tool. But with Cyber Sierra, you can launch ongoing employee security training on HIPAA risk mitigation and procedures from the same place.

Here’s a peek:

training employees

8. Implement Continuous Monitoring of HIPAA Controls

If you think becoming HIPAA-compliant is tough, you’re right. However, staying HIPAA-compliant is even tougher.

That’s because the process doesn’t stop when you pass audit reviews and become HIPAA-compliant. Cybercriminals don’t care that you’re compliant. They are always devising new tricks to breach your systems and steal PHI data in your company’s possession.

And you’ll face violation penalties from the OCR and pay fines should they succeed, despite being HIPAA-compliant in the past.

To avoid this, continuously:

Monitor HIPAA safeguards, controls and policy implementations
Track if employees and business associates are monitoring safeguards and completing refresher risk-mitigation training.
Detect, score, prioritize, and remediate emerging threats.

You can do all these with Cyber Sierra.

Take detecting and remediating threats as they emerge. Our Risk Register feature works round the clock to help you achieve this. It continuously scans and monitors all your connected cloud systems.

You get an always-updated dashboard with detected threats that have also been scored, and prioritized based on likelihood to cause havoc:

Conduct Risk Assessments

You also get steps for remediating each risk or assigning a remediation task to teammates. This way, you can continuously monitor HIPAA controls, mitigate risks, and stay HIPAA-compliant.

Automate HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA compliance can be overwhelming.

So if you end up with more unchecked boxes than checked ones, don’t panic. From creating policies, implementing HIPAA safeguards and controls, to conducting risk assessments, training employees, and continuous monitoring, there’s a lot to be managed.

Still, it goes beyond managing them to achieve initial compliance. HIPAA also requires organizations to maintain logs of their risk assessments, employee training, and other controls and compliance for a minimum of 6 years.

All of that is easier with an interoperable cybersecurity and compliance automation platform. By automating most processes needed, you can become (and stay) HIPAA-compliant.

That’s where software like Cyber Sierra comes in:

Become ( and Stay) HIPAA – Compliant From One Place

Conduct risk assessments, train employees, implement controls, automate HIPAA compliance, and much more.

Pramodh Rai

Meet Pramodh Rai, a technology aficionado and Cyber Sierra's co-founder, whose zest for innovation is fuelled by a cupboard stacked with zero-sugar Redbull. With a nimble footwork through the tech tulips across Asia Pacific, he's donned hats at Hmlet (the proptech kind) and Funding Societies | Modalku, building high-performing teams and technologies. A Barclays prodigy with dual degrees from Nanyang Technological University, Pramodh is a treasure trove of wisdom, dad jokes, and everything product/tech. He's the Sherpa in sneakers you need.

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The Busy CTOs Checklist Guide to Automating GDPR Compliance

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Look at this:

escalating GDPR

As shown, fines issued by the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) are escalating. Notably, it leaped tenfold from €295.9 million in 2021 to over €2.77 billion as of February 2023.

At this rate, CTOs and IT executives must stay GDPR-compliant (even after initial compliance) to avoid getting fined. But achieving this requires automating the gruesome pre- and post-GDPR compliance processes.

You’ll see how to accomplish both in the ongoing GDPR compliance checklist explored below. Before we get there…

Start by Knowing the 7 GDPR Principles

Article 5.1-2 of the GDPR privacy law outlines seven protection and accountability principles organizations must adhere to when processing personal data.

As captured below:

7 GDPR

Continuous adherence to all principles outlined above is how you become (and stay) GDPR-compliant. Unfortunately, it’s easier said because implementing their requirements leaves a lot to interpretation.

CSO’s Micheal Nadeau corroborates:

Michael Nadeau - Quote

To emphasize, fines for non-compliance could be as high as €20 million or 4% of your company’s global revenue. So to close every leeway that could lead to one, comprehensive and continuous implementation of GDPR principles is crucial.

Our 10-step checklist guide details how to do that. As we proceed, you’ll also see how Cyber Sierra automates crucial processes involved.

Download the checklist to follow along:

Ongoing GDPR Compliance Checklist

Become ( and stay) GDPR – compliant with Cyber Sierra’s actionable checklist.

The 10-Step Ongoing GDPR Compliance Checklist

Does GDPR, an EU law, even apply to you?

Organizations outside of Europe might ask this question. So before jumping into the checklist, here’s to re-clarify who must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Does GDPR, an EU law, even apply to you? Organizations outside of Europe might ask this question. So before jumping into the checklist, here’s to re-clarify who must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Explaining further, the GDPR’s official site notes:

GDPR.EU - In-content highlight design

And now, the checklist guide.

1. Map All Collected & Processed Data

The first step for becoming compliant with GDPR is taking a holistic inventory of all the data your company collects or processes.

Three things you should do here are:

Identify all databases, applications, networks, etc., within your organization.
Document all collected, processed, and stored personally identifiable information (PII) in those mapped systems.
Outline who has access to each mapped data (i.e., employees or third-party vendors, partners, etc.)

These actions create a birds-eye view of all personal data your company collects, stores, or processes. Matt Fisher, an IT thought leader, shared why this first step is crucial for simplifying the entire project of becoming GDPR-compliant.

In his words:

Matt Fisher - Quote

2. Document Justification for Data Processing

Collecting, storing, or processing personal data is illegal under the GDPR law. Therefore, all companies must justify why they are doing so, subject to one or more conditions listed in GDPR’s Article 6.

So as a 2nd step, create a process that documents your company’s justification for processing personal data. This should include a lawful basis for processing data approved by the GDPR such as:

Consent given by the data subject, where the data subject is the owner of the data.
Contract entered with the data subject.
Necessary for fulfilling a legal obligation.
Necessary for protecting the interests of the data subject or an associated third party.
Necessary for legitimate purposes pursued by the data controller (i.e., the organization collecting data) or associated third parties.

Next, add a consent box to all forms and switch to double opt-ins to ensure you only collect data with expressed consent. Then, create (or recreate) and publish your company’s privacy policy. In it, provide clear information on how you process data and justify why.

According to the GDPR’s official site:

GDPR.EU

3. Perform Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)

A data protection impact assessment uncovers how your product could jeopardize the personal data your company collects, stores, or processes. This step also helps you identify risks associated with personal data being processed.

Consider using a cybersecurity suite to effortlessly achieve both. Fortunately, this is one area where the Cyber Sierra interoperable cybersecurity and compliance automation platform comes in.

For instance, connect your cloud assets, network systems, etc., and our cybersecurity suite will scan everywhere your company collects, stores, or processes data.

You get a Scan Dashboard with:

Descriptions of all identified risks and vulnerabilities across everywhere your company collects, stores, or processes data.
Critical risks to personal data identified and prioritized.
Ability to assign identified threats to teammates with summarized remediation tips for mitigating risks:

Perform Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)

4. Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO)

If the steps above look overwhelming, it’s because they are.

Hence, this official statement:

Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO)

In addition to overseeing the steps up to this point, a DPO eases you of responsibilities outlined by the GDPR law.

Some crucial ones are:

Respond to comments and questions from data subjects related to how your company processes their personal data.
Cooperate with the data protection supervisory authority and inform executives and employees of their GDPR obligations.
Continuously monitor your organization’s GDPR processes and maintain documentation to prove compliance.
Train employees on compliance and perform ongoing audits.

Before we proceed…

Imagine your appointed data protection officer (or maybe, you) could continuously monitor your company’s GDPR compliance and train employees from one place. As you’ll soon see, you can do both with Cyber Sierra’s cybersecurity and compliance automation platform.

5. Launch Ongoing Employee Awareness Training

Punit Bhatia, author of ‘Be Ready for GDPR,’ advised:

Punit Bhatia - Quote

Punit is spot on because, as you can imagine, implementing and maintaining the GDPR law is complex. Therefore, regular data privacy training is needed to help employees handle personal data securely.

Ticking off this crucial step of the GDPR compliance process is easy with Cyber Sierra. You can launch, track completion, and manage ongoing employee security training necessary for implementing GDPR procedures and staying compliant from the same place.

Here’s a peek:

Employee awa

Automate Ongoing GDPR compliance from one place.

Perform data assessments, train employees, automate, and continuously monitor GDPR compliance from one place.

6. Implement Company-wide Safeguards

Companies are mandated to establish ‘appropriate technical and organizational measures,’ ensuring all processed customer data is properly secured. The GDPR doesn’t specify what safeguards must be implemented, allowing organizations to implement those relevant to their business needs.

However, crucial safeguards to consider are:

Multifactor authentication for employees and customers
Data encryption for all processed data
User access controls to monitor unauthorized accesses.

7. Enforce the Security of Data Transfers

To become compliant with GDPR, ensure that all personal data shared between your company, partners, and third parties is adequately transferred and secured.

Enforcing this requires:

Putting unavoidable technical controls (i.e., implementing data security measures) in place.
Having company-wide controls (i.e., implementing data governance measures) to guide employees handling data.
Creating Data Processing Agreements (DPA) with contractual clauses mandating third-party vendors to secure shared data.

8. Assess and Manage Third-Party Vendor Risks

Risks to personal data from third-party vendors aren’t left out of the GDPR compliance equation. In short, it is mandated for organizations to regularly assess and manage 3rd-party vendor risks.

So to ensure third-parties don’t sabotage your efforts toward becoming (and staying) GDPR-compliant, you must:

Conduct a thorough evaluation of the risk associated with every vendor within your organization’s ecosystem.
Have standard security questionnaires 3rd-party vendors must complete to prove compliance with data handling.
Implement measures for identifying and remediating third-party vendor risks swiftly.

Our tool makes these processes more efficient.

For instance, you can easily add vendors to our Assessments suite. And when doing so, choose from our prebuilt risk assessment templates and share it with your vendors to prove their compliance with handling personal data.

You can manage everything from one dashboard:

Assess and Manage Third-Party Vendor Risks

9. Create Breach Notification Policies

As cybercrime evolves, unauthorized access to personal data you control or process can still happen despite your company’s best effort.

In case it does:

How will your company’s security team handle it?
Specifically, who on the security team will handle it?
How will you monitor against such events and swiftly remediate them when they happen?

Creating and implementing breach notification procedures and policies addresses these concerns. And they are a mandatory requirement for becoming (and staying) GDPR-compliant.

Specifically, the EU GDPR mandates that all breaches be reported less than 72 hours after they occur. Data processors must report to data controllers. Data controllers, in turn, must report to a supervisory authority, often called the Data Protection Association.

You can also create, assign, and manage these essential GDPR policies and procedures with the Cyber Sierra compliance automation suite:

notify policy

10. Implement Continuous Monitoring of GDPR Controls

Becoming GDPR-compliant is tough.

But staying compliant is even tougher.

And that’s because the process isn’t a one-time affair. Cybercriminals are endlessly on the hunt for new ways to breach the personal data you control or process. This explains why non-compliance fines continue to escalate, jumping tenfold from two years ago:

escalating GDPR

To avoid this, continuously:

Monitor GDPR safeguards, controls and policy implementations
Train employees on emerging risks relevant to GDPR compliance
Track if employees and third-party vendors are monitoring safeguards and properly securing personal data they handle
Detect, score, prioritize, and remediate emerging data risks.

You can do all these with Cyber Sierra.

Take detecting and remediating risks as they emerge. Our Risk Register feature handles both effectively and efficiently. It can continuously scan and monitor all your connected cloud systems.

You get an always-updated dashboard with detected risks scored and prioritized based on likelihood to cause a data breach:

Conduct Risk Assessments

Automate Ongoing GDPR compliance from one place.

Perform data assessments, train employees, automate, and continuously monitor GDPR compliance from one place.

Pramodh Rai

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PCI DSS Compliance Checklist & Guide for Automating the Process

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Staying compliant to the Payments Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) can be overwhelming. To give you a clue, about 60.5% of PCI DSS requirements were unmet by organizations when they suffered a data breach, per SecurityMetrics’ 2021 study:

about 60.5% of PCI DSS requirements were unmet by organizations when they suffered a data breach, per SecurityMetrics’ 2021 study

This data confirms three things:

As the dynamics of processing, storing, and transmitting customers’ payments and credit card info evolve, the potential for data breaches also increases.
Meeting PCI DSS requirements is difficult.
You should automate the process of implementing controls to stay compliant, even after meeting initial requirements.

So when seeking a checklist, consider one that covers automating the implementation of controls post PCI DSS compliance. For this, CTOs and IT executives must start by…

Knowing the PCI DSS Controls & Requirements

PCI DSS has over 300+ security controls. So much so that learning all can take days, as observed by a Security Policy Lead at Stripe:

Mike Dahn - Quote

To help, the PCI Council organized these controls into six objectives, along with their corresponding compulsory requirements.

As illustrated below:

12 PCIDSS requirements

With the mandatory control objectives and their corresponding requirements outlined, to become and stay compliant teams must:

Adhere to the core PCI DSS requirements per control group
Automate their implementation to save time & money.

This checklist guide (you can download it below) will help you achieve both. As we go through it, you’ll also see how Cyber Sierra automates their implementation to save you time and money:

PCI DSS Compliance Certification Checklist

A checklist to help you automate the implementation of PCI DSS control and requirements.

The 8-Step PCI DSS Compliance Checklist

The PCI Council’s official reference guide outlined three steps for ongoing adherence and compliance to the PCI DSS. The steps are:

Assess: Identify all locations of cardholder data by taking inventory of all your IT assets and business processes for payments and card processing. Analyze them to detect vulnerabilities that could expose sensitive cardholder data.
Repair: Fix identified risks and vulnerabilities, securely remove unneeded cardholder data storage, and implement secure business processes.
Report: Document assessment and remediation details and submit compliance reports to your acquiring bank(s) and card brands you do business with (or relevant requesting entities):

steps for staying PCI DSS compliant

This 8-step checklist is designed to help you adhere to these ongoing requirements, as they are crucial to earning PCI DSS certification.

1. Determine PCI Level

Achieving PCI DSS compliance starts with knowing what PCI level your organization falls under. It could be one of four levels typically ranked based on credit card transactions:

Determine PCI Level

2. Map All Cardholder Data Flows

Three things your team should do here are:

Detect all customer-facing areas involved in processing payment transactions across your organization. This could include online shopping carts, over-the-phone orders, in-store payment terminals via credit/debit cards, etc.
Pinpoint the various ways cardholder data is handled across your company’s business units. Importantly, outline where the data is stored and everyone in your organization with access to it.
Identify internal systems and technologies involved in payments and transactions processing. This should include your cloud assets, network systems, data centers, and others.

These three to-dos above are crucial.

And that’s because it creates a comprehensive map of network systems, connections, and applications interacting with all credit card data across your organization.

3. Perform Internal Security Assessment

Once you’ve mapped all organization-wide network systems interacting with credit card data, assess them to spot vulnerabilities not aligned with the PCI DSS security controls.

You can do this with Cyber Sierra.

Initiate a scan of all technologies and network systems mapped to be interacting with cardholder data. For instance, you scan your Kubernetes, Repository, Networks, and Cloud environments:

Perform Internal Security Assessment

Once you initiate a scan, Cyber Sierra will:

Continuously monitor all network systems and cloud assets interacting with credit card payment transactions
Automatically assess and detect critical risks you should prioritize to stay aligned with PCI DSS security controls
Highlight tips guiding your team to remediate detected risks and vulnerabilities as they emerge.

You can also assign the remediation of these risks as tasks to relevant members of your security team on the same pane:

assign the remediation of these risks

Automate PCI DSS compliance.

Scan systems interacting with cardholder data, remediate risks, and continuously monitor PCI security controls from one place.

4. Fill Out Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ)

The SAQ records the result of the internal security assessment performed to gauge your company’s compliance with PCI DSS. The particular SAQ to fill out depends on your organization’s PCI Level transaction types relevant to your business environment.

As captured in this chart by the PCI Council:

Fill Out Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ)

5. Conduct External Vulnerability Scans

This step prepares you for compliance.

After the internal security assessment performed and self-assessment questionnaire filled out, hire PCI DSS approved scanning vendors (ASVs) to conduct another round of scans. These experts ensure that you’ve met all required PCI DSS standards before proceeding.

Noah Stahl shared why this is crucial:

Noah Stahl - Quote

6. Complete the Attestation of Compliance (AoC)

The Attestation of Compliance (AoC) declares your company’s compliance with PCI DSS. As a mandatory step toward PCI DSS compliance certification, this document must be completed by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).

Because it serves as evidence that your organization’s security posture, network systems, and practices can effectively protect against cardholder data threats.

Preview a sample of the document here.

7. Submit Filled Out PCI DSS Documents

Submit filled out forms in the previous steps, including:

Approved Scanning Vendors (ASVs) report
Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), and
Attestation of Compliance (AoC).

Once submitted, a PCI DSS accredited auditor reviews, vets them, and finalizes the PCI DSS compliance certification process for your company.

But it doesn’t end there.

8. Implement Continuous Monitoring

PCI DSS compliance is no one-time affair.

To understand why, recall this guide’s introduction. I cited data showing that about 60.5% of organizations didn’t meet PCI DSS requirements when they suffered a data breach.

Here’s how you avoid that.

Continuously monitor your organizations’ adherence to the PCI DSS security controls, even after achieving initial compliance. Cyber Sierra’s continuous controls monitoring suite automates this.

Our platform streamlines identifying and rating risks, automating the process of maintaining compliance with PCI DSS. Our prebuilt, auto-updated Risk Register, for instance, will help your team identify and know what risks to prioritize.

…all at a glance from one dashboard:

Conduct Risk Assessments

Automate Becoming PCI DSS Compliant

Becoming PCI DSS compliant, as this checklist shows, can be overwhelming and time-consuming. First, knowing what to implement from the 300+ controls to meet the 12 PCI requirements is hard, and depends on accurate internal security assessment.

Continuously monitoring your company’s cybersecurity posture to detect and remediate threats can also be daunting. But this is crucial to avoid getting penalized even after meeting initial compliance.

And it doesn’t end there.

The back and forth of sharing compliance documents between teams and external auditors can be a thorn in the flesh if done manually. But with a centralized platform, you can automate these processes, achieve compliance faster, and remain compliant.

This is where Cyber Sierra comes in:

Automate PCI DSS compliance.

Scan systems interacting with cardholder data, remediate risks, and continuously monitor PCI security controls from one place.

Pramodh Rai

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Busy Tech Executives’ ISO 27001 Compliance Checklist

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Ron’s startup started expanding globally, going upmarket to enterprise three months ago. In that time, they encountered 63 security questionnaires, but all slowed or blocked the sales process.

Sounds familiar?

Well, you can’t blame prospects fixated on security compliance to win their business. No one wants to suffer data breach costs from working with a company not taking information security (infosec) seriously:

data breach costs

This leaves tech executives (like Ron) with two options:

Spend weeks filling out prospects’ security questionnaires every time (and still risk losing deals due to inadequate infosec), or
Get a globally-recognized compliance certificate to ease security questionnaires (and facilitate the sales process).

The latter is where ISO 27001 compliance comes in. But before our checklist to help you ease the process, knowing the mandatory requirements is crucial.

Mandatory ISO 27001 Requirements

The International Standards Organization (ISO) is behind the ISO 27001 compliance. They updated the certification requirements in 2022, highlighting mandatory documentation such as:

Internal Audit Report
Risk Assessment Report
Statement of Applicability
Information Security Policy
Information Security Management (ISMS) Scope

Across these compulsory requirements, many security controls must be in place to pass an auditor’s review. But implementing those controls mostly starts with real-time insight into a company’s cybersecurity posture.

This means you’ll need to:

Navigate the many controls in ISO 27001
Have a checklist for implementing each, and
Incorporate a way to automate most processes involved.

This checklist guide will explore all three. So download our ISO 27001 compliance checklist for reference as you follow along:

The ISO 27001 Compliance Checklist.

A checklist to help you implement the right controls and automate ISO 27001 Compliance.

Navigating the Many Controls in ISO 27001

Although down from 114, the ISO 27001 compliance updated in 2022 still has a whopping 93 security controls across four (4) categories:

People controls (8)
Physical controls (14)
Technological controls (34)
Organizational controls (37):

Navigating the Many Controls in ISO 27001

Not all controls are mandatory. Called Annex A, companies are free to implement those relevant to their business.

However, you need sufficient controls to demonstrate how you establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve your company’s information security management system (ISMS).

So knowing what controls to choose is crucial.

And tracking implementation across teams needs more than a checklist, but a centralized platform that can automate most ISO 27001 compliance documentation processes.

That’s where Cyber Sierra comes in.

Our interoperable cybersecurity platform has the mandatory ISO 27001 policies built into it. Also, across teams, you can assign, track, and automate implementation from one place:

Navigating the Many Controls in ISO 27001

Implement the right controls and automate ISO 27001 Compliance from one place.

Checklist to Implement ISO 27001 Compliance Standards

Many CTOs, CISOs, and tech executives leverage Cyber Sierra to achieve ISO 27001 compliance in record time. They achieve this by streamlining the excessive paperwork required, automating the implementation of controls, and managing everything from one place.

So based on our experience, we’ve created this 7-step ISO 27001 compliance certification checklist guide for your reference.

1. Scope an ISO 27001 Project Plan

ISO 27001 certification is a team effort.

As such, you’d need contributions from relevant team members across your organization. We’ve also found from experience that things move way faster when teammates prioritize the process.

So to create the needed sense of priority, scope a project plan specific to preparing for (and becoming) ISO 27001 compliant.

It should outline:

Why your startup is pursuing ISO 27001 compliance.
How it will bolster your company’s security posture.
Who on your team will be doing what within deadlines.

In addition to these, define the scope of your Information Security Management (ISMS). Like a house depends on its foundation, achieving ISO 27001 compliance depends on this.

And that’s because an ISMS scope succinctly documents the information your startup wants to protect and exclude. The ISMS scope of a software company may include a:

List of departments/organizational units
List of processes and services they cover
List of physical assets/locations
List of exclusions not in scope.

To give you an idea, here’s a section of GitLab’s:

Scope an ISO 27001 Project Plan

2. Create ISMS Policies

Your ISMS scope determines what ISO 27001 policies need to be created. But there are mandatory ISMS policies such as:

Incident Management Policy
Acceptable Use Policy
Access Control Policy
Assets Management Policy
Backup Management Policy
Business Continuity Policy
Change Management Policy
Cloud Services Security Policy
And 15 others.

Documenting these policies and implementing their corresponding controls takes heavy paperwork. To help automate the process, Cyber Sierra comes prebuilt with these mandatory policies.

And you can even assign them to relevant teammates, track status, and implementation progress in one pane:

Create ISMS Policies

It doesn’t end there.

You can also create policies unique to your ISMS scope, upload corresponding documentation, and assign them to teammates:

3. Conduct Risk Assessments

This step has two objectives:

To detect data security risks across your company’s systems, networks, and cloud assets.
To evaluate identified risks based on their potential impact on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data accessed by your company.

Passing the ISO 27001 audit review and becoming certified depends on how well your company manages cybersecurity threats. So the goal of this assessment is to develop a risk register for managing… risks.

And technology can simplify things here. For instance, with Cyber Sierra, connect your tech stack prone to cybersecurity risks, and it’ll:

Automatically scan your cloud assets
Detect risks and vulnerabilities in real-time
Assess and score the impact of those risks, and
Enable you to assign remediation tasks to teammates.

All that from one Risk Register pane:

Conduct Risk Assessments

4. Define Statement of Applicability

A Statement of Applicability (SoA) is required for ISO 27001. As the name suggests, it is a document stating the Annex A security controls that are applicable —or aren’t applicable— to an organization.

So in defining one, you should:

List the security controls your company wants to manage and mitigate against based on your risk assessment.
Explain why you chose those security controls for your information security management system (ISMS).
State the status of your chosen controls (i.e., have they been fully implemented? If no, why not?).
Briefly explain excluded controls and why they aren’t applicable to your organization.

As the points above show, the SoA document summarizes your ISMS policies and risk assessment. So a good place to start is revisiting steps 1-3 of this checklist. And this is crucial because your SoA is what ISO 27001 auditors rely on during audit reviews.

5. Implement Policies & Controls

This step is where you begin to implement the security controls for your chosen ISMS policies. And you do this by providing appropriate documentation of each control. It’s typically the most difficult part of the project, requiring loads of implementation evidence to be uploaded ahead of an audit review.

Take the mandatory Cloud Services Security (CSS) policy.

You’ll need to implement:

A document describing this policy per your ISMS, and
Twelve (12) documents as evidence to show you’ve implemented its corresponding 12 controls.

Cyber Sierra streamlines this cumbersome process. For instance, you can quickly edit a pre-built CSS policy document to suit your ISMS scope and upload evidence of controls, all from one place:

Implement Policies & Controls

6. Establish Employee Security Awareness & Training

Ongoing security awareness and training for employees is indispensable for becoming (and remaining) ISO 27001 compliant.

And that’s for three reasons:

To train relevant employees on how to implement your ISO 27001 policies and security controls to maintain your ISMS.
To make them aware of security risks your company is currently facing and the processes for mitigating them.
To continually educate them about emerging security threats and the best practices for defending against them.

These ongoing training programs should cut across cloud security, common cybersecurity threats, anti-phishing, and others. And you can launch and manage them all with Cyber Sierra:

Establish Employee Security Awareness & Training

7. Perform Internal & External Audits

Without an external audit spearheaded by an accredited ISO 27001 compliance auditor, an organization can’t be certified.

But before that, a series of internal audits are necessary. These prepare your company for the external one, and hiring consultants to review all implemented ISO 27001 documentation is also advised.

Typically, your team should:

Double review internal policies and procedures’ documentation
Sample all uploaded evidence as part of the internal review to demonstrate correct implementation of policies and controls
Analyze findings from all document reviews to ensure they meet your ISMS scope and ISO 27001 certification requirements
Implement improvements, as needed, based on audit findings ahead of the external certification audit review.

After the internal audit comes the external one.

So request an accredited auditor to review your company’s implementation of ISMS policies and security controls against the official ISO 27001 standard. Then proceed to the Certification Audit for a final review of your company’s business processes, policies, and security controls to get certified in ISO 27001 compliance.

8. Implement Continuous Security Controls’ Monitoring

ISO 27001 compliance isn’t a one-time affair.

Certification must be renewed every three years. And to meet requirements when recertification is due, companies must undergo and pass yearly Periodic Surveillance Audits.

The annual surveillance audits follow the same process as the final audit before the initial ISO 27001 certification. It seeks to identify and correct nonconformities in the maintenance of implemented ISMS policies and security controls. And here’s how you ensure that:

Continuously scan your cloud assets, repository, Kubernetes, and network environments to identify security risks as they emerge.
Assign critical risks to relevant team members with tips on how to remediate them to pass periodic surveillance audits and retain your ISO 27001 compliance.

Your team can do both of these with Cyber Sierra:

Implement Continuous Security Controls’ Monitoring

The Advantage of ISO 27001, Without the Hassle

Imagine you had all the steps in this gruesome ISO 27001 compliance certification checklist in one interoperable cybersecurity platform.

Imagine in one pane, your team could:

Understand each step of the process
Manage the completion of each step
Implement ISMS policies and security controls
Automate evidence collection to show proof of compliance, correction of non-conformities, if any found during audits.
Perform risk assessment and assign remediation tasks
Establish ongoing employees’ security awareness & training
Go through the various audit reviews required without going back and forth with teammates and auditors over spreadsheets
Implement continuous monitoring of security controls, manage emerging threats, and mitigate critical ones to stay compliant.

Imagine the benefits of ISO 27001 (i.e., no need to fill security questionnaires or miss competitive deals) without the hassle of the steps above. As shown throughout this checklist guide, Cyber Sierra makes it possible by automating most processes involved in becoming (and remaining) ISO 27001 compliant.

Why not talk to one of our ISO 27001 experts?

Implement the right controls and automate ISO 27001 Compliance from one place.

Pramodh Rai

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SOC 2 Compliance Simplified for Busy Tech Executives

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Ron has to choose from two startups.

Both offer identical services at significantly different price points. Out of the two, only startup B is certified in security compliance. As the CTO of an enterprise firm, evidence of being able to protect his organization’s data from breaches is crucial to Ron.

So despite startup A’s lower price, he chose startup B:

soc2 compliant

This scenario highlights just one advantage of being SOC 2 compliant. It makes prospects see your growing startup as a security-conscious partner, giving you an edge in competitive enterprise deals.

But meeting requirements and passing independent CPA audits to achieve SOC 2 compliance is no easy feat. To increase your chances…

Early Preparation for a SOC 2 Audit is Key

A Cybersecurity Writer at CSO said it best:

Mary K. Pratt - Quote

Demanding tasks are simplified if broken into small steps. Since the same applies to earning SOC 2 attestation, an optimal early preparatory path is knowing what steps to take.

Some crucial ones include:

Having the core SOC 2 compliance requirement in place
Creating a checklist to help you automate the process
Knowing how much a SOC 2 report will cost you.

To help you prepare and ace the audit, this guide will explore these steps. You’ll also see how to build a solid cybersecurity posture and automate the SOC 2 compliance process with Cyber Sierra:

Improve your company's cybersecurity posture and automate SOC 2 compliance processes from one place.

The Core SOC 2 Compliance Requirement

SOC 2 compliance has two types.

And requirements depend on the one you seek. SOC 2 Type I checks if you are SOC 2 compliant at a particular point in time. It’s like a snapshot. Type II, on the other hand, reviews your company’s cybersecurity compliance over a longer period (i.e., have you been compliant in 6–12 months?)

Per the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the organization behind this compliance certificate, companies should consider a SOC 2 Type II report when:

Stakeholders, investors, and fellow executives need to gain confidence and trust in their company’s security processes.
Prospects (and existing customers) seek to understand their ongoing security processes and controls:

consider a SOC 2 Type II report

SOC 2 Type II is therefore more comprehensive, carries more weight, and is the one often requested by security-conscious prospects. Getting it revolves around AICPA’s five Trust Services Criteria (TSC):

Security,
Availability,
Processing integrity,
Confidentiality,
Privacy.

SOC 2 Type II five Trust Services Criteria (TSC)

Out of these five, security is the core and compulsory.

And veteran CPA, Bernard Gallagher, stressed why:

Bernard Gallagher - Quote

In other words, to appease SOC 2 Type II auditors, you must prioritize managing security risks effectively across your organization. For this, consider a cybersecurity platform that can:

Automatically scan your cloud assets
Detect risks and vulnerabilities in real-time
Assess and score the impact of those risks, and
Enable you to assign remediation tasks to relevant members of your security team from one risk register.

You can do all these with Cyber Sierra’s Risk Register:

Cyber Sierra’s Risk Register

But it doesn’t end there.

Ongoing employee security awareness training is also a core requirement of SOC 2 Type II. This means you must continuously train employees to remain compliant when it’s time for audits again.

SOC 2 Compliance Checklist, Automation Guide

Many CTOs and IT executives have become SOC 2 compliant in record time through our interoperable cybersecurity platform. For some, the scenario (recall this blog’s intro?) of startup A losing a big deal to startup B for not having security compliance is common.

We believe no startup should suffer that.

So based on our experience working with numerous businesses to automate the various processes involved, we’ve created this SOC 2 compliance checklist for your reference.

The SOC 2 Compliance Checklist

A checklist to help you automate most processes involved in becoming SOC 2 compliant.

1. Scope Your SOC 2 Project Plan

A crucial first step is ensuring team members get the same sense of priority as you journey towards becoming SOC 2 compliant. You don’t want them treating tasks related to it as just another to-do.

So start the project with a description that addresses:

Why your startup needs SOC 2 compliance.
How it will bolster your company’s security posture.
The type of SOC 2 audit you’re going for (and why).

Still in the scoping step, outline and briefly explain components within your org that must meet AICPA’s attestation standards. They include infrastructure, data, procedures, software, and people.

The TSC that applies to your business is next.

As stated earlier, security is the core SOC 2 requirement, so it must be included in your scope. Selecting other TSCs should be based on demands and regulations pertinent to your organization.

For instance, choose:

Availability if prospects and existing customers have concerns about your product’s downtime.
Confidentiality if prospects and customers have specific requirements for confidentiality or if your startup stores sensitive info protected by NDAs (non-disclosure agreements).
Processing Integrity if your company executes critical operations like financial processing, tax processing, payroll services, and related ones.
Privacy if prospects and existing customers store PII (personal identifiable information) like birthdays, healthcare data, and social security numbers.

2. Implement SOC 2 Policies and Procedures

Across the five TSCs, there are:

26 mandatory policies, and
About 196 security controls.

Defined procedures for implementing the policies and their respective security controls that apply to your organization are needed. Typically, this requires expertise and involves a lot of manual work.

You need:

The expertise to know what policies to prioritize
Lots of manual work uploading evidence of security controls for each policy, which can be draining for everyone involved.

This is where technology comes in.

With Cyber Sierra, for instance, ticking this step off your SOC 2 checklist is easy. There’s an expert to help you choose the mandatory policies you should prioritize. Our technology also has these policies and security controls built into it and updated regularly.

So from one dashboard, you can:

Assign policies (and their controls) to relevant team members
Track their progress in implementing those controls:

Assign policies (and their controls) to relevant team members

3. Complete SOC 2 Compliance Documentation

Is there evidence to show that your company has implemented security controls for policies based on the chosen TSC?

Saying ‘yes’ isn’t enough.

To pass auditors’ scrutiny and earn SOC 2 compliance, you must show proof by uploading appropriate documentation. The final number of documentation you’ll need to provide to a CPA depends on the TSC chosen in the scoping step.

However, as with TSC, there are mandatory ones like:

Change Management
Application and Software Change
Data and Software Disposal
Detection and Monitoring Procedures
Incidence Response Policy
Logical and Physical Address
Third Party Risk Management
Risk Mitigation.

The procedures for providing evidence of security controls for each required documentation above are also built into Cyber Sierra:

security controls for each required documentation above are also built into Cyber Sierra

And it doesn’t end there.

Cyber Sierra also simplifies the process of uploading evidence for the compulsory SOC 2 documentation and TSC security controls. For instance, click on any policy, say, Risk Mitigation, and in addition to succinct descriptions of what it (and its controls) entails…

You can edit a policy per your needs and upload evidence:

Complete SOC 2 Compliance Documentation

4. Conduct SOC 2 Readiness Assessments

This step comes down to two things:

An internal risk assessment to ensure that cyber posture and uploaded security controls’ evidences are accurate.
Remediation of identified risks and vulnerabilities, ensuring your organization is ready to pass strict SOC 2 audit reviews.

Ticking both off your SOC 2 checklist starts with scanning your cloud assets and network environments to identify vulnerabilities. Then, remediating each to boost your confidence of passing the audit.

Cyber Sierra automates both.

In a few clicks, you can connect and scan your cloud, repository, Kubernetes, and network environments. Each scan prompts a dashboard with your company’s cybersecurity posture, from where you’ll find all vulnerabilities and descriptions of critical risks.

You also get instructions on how to remediate each vulnerability and can assign remediation tasks to relevant people on your security team:

SOC 2 Readiness Assessments

5. Monitor Security Controls for Upto 12 Months

Adhering to the four steps above snapshots your company’s cybersecurity posture. They are enough for SOC 2 Type I audit reviews. But for SOC 2 Type II certification that’s often-requested by prospects and customers, you must be compliant for up to 12 months.

So you must continuously monitor for at least 12 months to ensure evidence uploaded for each security control is intact. This boils down to detecting, assessing, and remediating risks that could render the evidence you upload for security controls worthless.

Technology can simplify this process.

For instance, and as I shared earlier, connect your tech stack to a good cybersecurity platform, and it will:

Automatically scan your cloud assets
Detect risks and vulnerabilities in real-time
Assess and score the impact of those risks, and
Enable you to assign remediation tasks to relevant members of your security team from one risk register.

Again, Cyber Sierra’s Risk Register does these out of the box:

Cyber Sierra’s Risk Register

How Much Does SOC 2 Report Cost?

SOC 2 compliance is a huge undertaking.

Hiring an auditor for the review alone starts at about $5k and could exceed $30k, depending on the auditing company. It doesn’t end there. In no particular order, you’ll also incur costs to:

Scope and manage the project
Train employees on cybersecurity awareness
Train security team members on remediating risks
Commission legal review of uploaded documentation
Perform readiness assessments and ongoing monitoring of security controls of chosen policies.
Manage third-party vendor risks.

Depending on company size, these steps could take 6–12 months and can cost $50-$110k in lost time and productivity if done manually. On the flip side, these costs reduce drastically if your team can manage and automate most of the requirements above from one place.

And that’s why we built Cyber Sierra:

Improve your company’s cybersecurity posture.

Automate 90% of SOC 2 compliance processes from one place.

Pramodh Rai

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Why Security Executives Avoid Point Cybersecurity Solutions

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Cyberattacks are getting worse.

Between 2021 and 2022, it increased by 38% worldwide:

Between 2021 and 2022, it increased by 38% worldwide

There are other sides to this data.

First, cybercriminals are also becoming more sophisticated in their attacks on companies. Accordingly, there are growing numbers of tools (i.e., point cybersecurity solutions) for addressing specific threats individually.

And, that’s supposed to be a good thing.

Unfortunately, using multiple vendor tools to tackle each cyber threat hasn’t helped CISOs secure their company infrastructure. For instance, another research by Check Point found that too many security solutions does your team’s cybersecurity efforts more harm than good:

cybersecurity efforts more harm than good

This insight calls for CISOs to pause and ask…

Why Aren’t Point Cybersecurity Solutions Optimal?

Most are often reactive purchases.

Take when news of an enterprise data breach creates an uptick in sales of point solutions for tackling such cyberattacks. Likewise, a series of phishing attacks will pull companies into investing in counter-phishing solutions.

It usually makes sense at first. Long-term, however, such a siloed, reactionary approach to mitigating cyber risks has downsides. One is that, because they aren’t interoperable with others, they still leave gaps for cybercriminals. This is why opting for an interoperable cybersecurity suite designed to work dynamically makes more sense.

And a veteran CISO recommended this:

Joe Robertson - Quote

Joe’s suggestion highlights why IT executives should opt for a cybersecurity solution that can tackle multiple threats in one place.

In line with that, this article will:

Explore 8 core cybersecurity solutions (and threats they tackle)
Showcase Cyber Sierra, our interoperable cybersecurity suite.

Tackle Cybersecurity In One Interoperable Solution Suite

8 Core Types of Enterprise Cybersecurity Solutions

There’s no shortage of point cybersecurity tools.

And that’s in any niche or subniche you tune into:

8 Core Types of Enterprise Cybersecurity Solutions

But across this multitude of tools, there are core data security threats each category aims to mitigate. We explore those solutions below.

1. Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)

SIEM products monitor and analyze security events across an organization’s systems and network. According to IBM, most point solutions in this category offer the same core functionalities:

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)

And it’s not just having the same functionality.

Being difficult to set up and manage without specialized employees are other problems SIEMs have, per W@tchTower. In short, their report further noted something CISOs should take even more seriously:

Being difficult to set up and manage without specialized employees are other problems SIEMs have, per W@tchTower

A solution to this is a SIEM that can aggregate threat alerts into an auto-updated risk register. Better if this risk register also has the capability to articulate the possible impact, likelihood, and risk score of each threat alert. This way, the data is more actionable for your team.

Cyber Sierra has these capabilities:

risk register

2. Vulnerability Management Tools

While SIEMs can analyze and highlight crucial intelligence about potential threats, they lack in providing the right context, as observed above. Also, the data you get is often voluminous, making it difficult for your security team to prioritize efforts.

Point vulnerability management tools will integrate with a SIEM to complement it and create manageable processes for eliminating cyber threats. So if you purchase and implement a SIEM product, you’d still need to buy a separate vulnerability management software.

Such essential synergy is pre-built into Cyber Sierra.

At the top, the security dashboard has an always-updated overview for members of your team to quickly glance:

Average safety score of your organization
No. of vulnerabilities.
No. of warnings, and
Threats sorted from critical to low:

Vulnerability Management Tools

Below this overview section, and from the same pane, managing vulnerabilities doesn’t require buying and implementing a separate tool.

Each sorted alert comes with a description and succinct remediation to-do. And you can assign remediation tasks to your team right there on our platform or push them to JIRA without jumping through hoops:

assign remediation tasks to your team right there on our platform or push them to JIRA without jumping through hoops

3. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Solutions in this category use custom enforcement to prevent sensitive data that could lead to security breaches from leaving your organization. Top DLP software can monitor, detect, and block both data entering your corporate network and those attempting to leave.

According to Gartner, the top nine DLP products are:

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

4. Network Access Control (NAC)

These technologies allow CISOs and IT security executives to confirm the authorization and access of all devices and users on a company’s network. But most NAC tools rely on threat alerts from a SIEM.

For instance, an implemented NAC product could enforce a security policy to contain an endpoint based on alerts triggered by a SIEM. In other words, as a point security solution, NAC tools could be deficient.

eSecurity Planet reviewed the top nine NAC tools:

Network Access Control (NAC)

5. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Here is an MFA technology explained visually:

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

As shown, MFA creates an added layer of security for anyone trying to access your software. Instead of just passwords, which hackers can easily breach, personal verification methods are enforced.

This reinforces your organization’s identity and access management (IAM), decreasing the likelihood of cyberattacks.

Expert Insights reviewed the top MFA products:

Expert Insights reviewed the top MFA products

6. Security Configuration Management (SCM)

Solutions in this category are essential if your organization must comply with governance and regulatory compliance (GRC) requirements. First, they ensure that your company’s cloud tools, devices, and all related systems are properly configured and secured.

On the other hand, a good SCM automates most processes needed to improve your cybersecurity posture and secure compliance certifications.

But they have a caveat.

SCMs are standalone point solutions. So, you’ll still need to purchase separate tools to navigate the tiresome process of securing different compliance certifications like SOC, ISO27001, PCI DSS, and others.

And this is where an interoperable cybersecurity solution suite like Cyber Sierra shines. First, with a single scan, it can continuously identify misconfigurations in your network, repository, cloud, and Kubernetes:

Security Configuration Management (SCM)

Threats identified can be managed (with remediation tasks auto-generated per alert) on the same platform. This gives your team an always-updated view of your company’s data cybersecurity posture in one pane.

Also, your company’s cyber posture data gets ingested natively into our GRC solution, reducing the entire process of getting standard and custom compliance certifications to a few simple clicks:

your company’s cyber posture data gets ingested natively into our GRC solution, reducing the entire process of getting standard and custom compliance certifications to a few simple clicks

Since you’re still here…

Tackle Cyberthreats, Automate Compliance Certifications. Right-size Cyber Insurance. All In One Interoperable Solution Suite

7. Phishing Simulation & Employee Awareness Program

Products in this niche help IT executives to disperse cybersecurity awareness and train employees on countering phishing attacks. Often called anti-phishing programs, they simulate realistic attacks and gauge how effective employees are at handling cyberthreats.

But an exceptional solution should do more.

It should have the various anti-phishing training types built-in, so busy executives can easily send them to employees in a few button clicks.

Cyber Sierra has that:

anti-phishing training types

Also, awareness training programs to educate employees on all possible cybersecurity threats should be built-in, too. This includes:

Best ways to use social media
Cyber risks through 3rd-party vendors
How to spot phishing emails
Multi-factor authentication
Safe browsing habits
Sensitive data handling
Ransomware
Common cybersecurity threats
And others.

Cyber Sierra also has these out of the box:

8. Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) Solutions

By utilizing the tools in the seven categories so far, you can greatly strengthen your internal data security measures. Unfortunately, they won’t prevent cybercriminals from attacking through 3rd-party vendors, which your company needs to enhance its capabilities.

In short, the stats are scary in this area:

cybersecurity efforts more harm than good

Point TPRM tools help you mitigate possible third-party threats.

But managing 3rd-party risks along with other threats in one, interoperable solution suite, is more optimal. Instead of another siloed tool in your security stack, you get the entire process synced into your team’s existing cybersecurity program.

Cyber Sierra makes this possible by streamlining the entire processes involved in managing third-party risks into three steps. It also comes pre-built with the two essential vendor assessment templates:

pre-built with the two essential vendor assessment

We’ve covered the eight core cybersecurity solutions.

We also emphasized the need to opt for an interoperable cybersecurity solution instead of multiple point tools.

You may be wondering…

Why Choose an Interoperable Cybersecurity Solution?

I’ll give you three reasons.

The 1st is that the threat landscape is expanding with no end in sight. Consequently, the skills and knowledge required to answer the simple, but crucial question, “are we secure,” will only get broader. Johan Bogema, a Cybersecurity Expert, observed this in a report for ON2IT.

He wrote:

Johan Bogema - Quote

As cyber threats broaden with more sophisticated attacks, mitigating them in one interoperable platform that works well together is optimal. That’s because your team can tackle threats without losing sight of others.

The 2nd reason has to do with wasted spend and exposure to vulnerabilities resulting from tools that don’t play well together. Matt Kakpo, a veteran Reporter at Cybersecurity Dive, corroborates:

Matt Kapko - Quote

The 3rd reason is a consequence of the 1st two.

Due to wasted spend and difficulties with implementing separate solutions that don’t work together, executives are opting for solutions that tackle a wide range of threats in one pane.

Take Delta Air’s Global CISO:

Debbie Wheeler - Quote

Interoperable, One Pane View

In addition to replacing most point solutions highlighted, Cyber Sierra works well with cybersecurity tools used by enterprise companies. I mean those for tackling advanced threats like:

Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW)
Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB).

This built-in interoperability means you can cut down on vendors, while getting a one-pane view with detailed intel of your company’s cyber posture. It also means you can identify endpoints across your organization’s network with potential threats faster.

Continuous security controls monitoring and the entire process of securing cyber insurance is streamlined into Cyber Sierra. This means you (and your team) can address a broad range of threats in one place:

Tackle Cyberthreats, Automate Compliance Certifications. Right-size Cyber Insurance. All In One Interoperable Solution Suite

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Data Breaches: Is Your Organization Prepared?

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In today’s digital landscape, data security is of utmost importance. We asked CEOs, founders, and cybersecurity experts for their top strategies to protect their organizations from data breaches and hacks. From promoting employee cybersecurity practices to emphasizing strong encryption, here are the top five insights shared by these professionals on ensuring data security.

Promote Employee Cybersecurity Practices
Utilize Data Deduplication
Prioritize Patient Security
Implement Comprehensive Security Measures
Emphasize Strong Encryption

Promote Employee Cybersecurity Practices

By teaching them good personal cybersecurity tactics and tools, everyone will be better off. Everyone knows they shouldn’t click sketchy links or open sketchy files, but people still do it. Help your people know better and look for emails like those.

James Wilson

Personal Cybersecurity Expert, My Data Removal

We require our employees to apply personal cybersecurity best practices for all of their accounts and systems. This means using a password manager to manage and create unique, complex, and long passwords, setting up multi-factor authentication on all accounts, and using email masking for unimportant or test accounts.

Periodic phishing tests can help maintain employee awareness. There are many technical things you can and should do to protect your systems and data, but the weakest point is often your people.

James Wilson, Personal Cybersecurity Expert, My Data Removal

Utilize Data Deduplication

Failing to keep your data up-to-date leaves opportunities for it to be accessed or stolen. Using data deduplication prevents incidents such as this while making sure the company data is always in great shape.

Matthew Ramirez

CEO, Rephrase

Failing to keep your data up-to-date leaves opportunities for it to be accessed or stolen by someone or some malware, either accidentally or maliciously. Using data deduplication prevents incidents such as this while making sure the company data is always in great shape. It also facilitates simple backup, data recovery, and archiving.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrase

Prioritize Patient Security

Patient security is of utmost importance in the medical field. Investing in robust security measures is not only a necessity but also shows our commitment to protecting our patients’ sensitive information.

Diane Howard

Founder, Esthetic Finesse

We prioritize strict adherence to privacy regulations and implement advanced technologies to ensure data integrity. Our patients can trust that their personal information is in safe hands, allowing them to focus on their well-being and trust in our care.

Diane Howard, Founder, Esthetic Finesse

Implement Comprehensive Security Measures

Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication… Keep your software up to date… Use a firewall and antivirus software… Educate your employees about data security… Back up your data regularly.

Brenton Thomas

CEO, Twibi

Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication. Passwords should be at least 12 characters long and should include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to enter a code from their phone beside their password.

Keep your software up to date. Software updates often include security patches that can help protect your systems from known vulnerabilities.
Use a firewall and antivirus software. A firewall can help block unauthorized access to your network, while antivirus software can help detect and remove malware.
Educate your employees about data security. Make sure your employees are aware of the risks of data breaches and hacks, and teach them how to protect your organization’s data.
Back up your data regularly. In the event of a data breach or hack, having a backup of your data can help you minimize the damage.

Brenton Thomas, CEO, Twibi

Emphasize Strong Encryption

I understand that encryption plays a crucial role in safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access. Therefore, I have ensured that all our data, both at rest and in transit, is encrypted using strong encryption algorithms.

Harsh Verma

SEO, CodeDesign

I am working closely with our IT team to identify areas where encryption can be implemented effectively. We are encrypting data stored on our servers, databases, and backup systems, making it virtually impossible for any unauthorized individuals to decipher the information even if they gain access to it.

Additionally, I am vigilant about using secure communication channels for transmitting data. I encourage the use of encrypted protocols, such as HTTPS, when transferring data between our systems and external parties. This ensures that data remains protected throughout its journey, reducing the risk of interception or tampering.

Harsh Verma, SEO, CodeDesign

Srividhya Karthik

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CISOs Checklist for Battling Data Security Risks

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What a time to be a CTO.

Overseeing cloud acceleration already demands a lot —leading IT initiatives, managing legacy systems, sourcing tech talent, etc. Added to these, ensuring data security has leapfrogged into a top challenge.

Tan’s 2023 survey report of Asian-based CTOs corroborates:

Security is arguably one of the top challenges for both CTOs and CIOS as organizations race to the cloud. While misconfiguration is said to be one of the most common reasons for application breaches, insecure APIs have become a new vector of attack, enabling DDoS attacks or undetected access to sensitive company or customer data.

Allan Tan 

 Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY

Tech leaders have no choice but to adapt…

Because data security threats are only getting worse:

As shown above, between 2020 and 2021, external cyberattack attempts increased by a whopping 50%. But it’s not just external threats. About 82% of the time, data security breaches involve human element, i.e., internal employees’ error or negligence.

These trends beg a crucial question:

Where Should Solving SaaS Data Security Threats Start?

What you focus on is key to solving data security issues.

But with no end to cyber threats like social engineering attacks, phishing, etc., in sight, knowing where to focus isn’t easy. In short, getting it right makes being a CTO harder than ever before.

Even a veteran CTO isn’t finding it easy:

In my 20-plus years working in enterprise security, it's hard to recall a time when it was harder to be a CTO. As a profession, we face so many challenges keeping our organizations secure from attacks in a fast-changing threat landscape that the task can sometimes become overwhelming, leaving us unsure about what to focus on first.

Wei Huang 

CTO, Anomali

Based on this, here’s our recommendation.

With the fast-changing threat landscape and fact that cyberattacks could be external or from internal mistakes, it’s best to know:

Today’s top data security challenges,
Their likely impact on your organization, and
How to automate tackling them and staying compliant.

This guide (and what should pass as an enterprise CISO data security checklist) will help you do all three:

A Checklist for
Solving Data Security Challenges

Get the SaaS CTOs’ checklist guide for tackling SaaS Data security challenges.

Today’s Top 3 Data Security Challenges

We perused analyst reports, polls, and surveys featuring CTOs, CISOs, and relevant security execs. All with one goal: To identify today’s top data security challenges and their likelihood to impact cloud-based tech companies.

In no particular order, they are as follows.

1.Lack of Employees’ Awareness

If you’re like most tech companies, you’ve adopted a hybrid or remote-first work culture. This flexibility has advantages. For CTOs, one is that it makes sourcing tech talent beyond a company’s immediate environs possible.

But it also has disadvantages.

First, it increases a company’s data vulnerability layers. That’s because logging into company networks from remote locations opens more data-breaching rooms. Second, and more important, most employees aren’t always up to date on how to spot and counter new attacks.

This lack of awareness has profound implications.

For context, earlier, I cited a study showing that 82% of the time, it takes an internal negligence for cybercriminals to prevail. Well, a similar study by the WEF puts that number at a staggering 95%. This makes ongoing employee awareness a top challenge.

And technology leaders agree.

Of over 1,900 CISOs, IT professionals, etc., polled, about 87% agreed that without employee training, effective IT security isn’t possible:

Solving this problem requires two things.

One, you should launch ongoing phishing campaigns and employee awareness training. Second, ensure each training actually gets completed with a platform that gives you a real-time overview of employees who need a nudge to complete their training:

Why CTOs Should Automate Solving Data Security Risks

Did you notice a common denominator across the top three SaaS data security risks outlined above? In case you missed it, here goes:

Mitigating each isn’t a one-time affair.

As the threat landscape evolves, there’s need to continuously train employees, scan for cloud misconfigurations, and assess 3rd-party vendor risks. This means that to combat threats, CTOs need to:

Automate each data security risk-mitigating process, and
Integrate these threat-averting processes into modules that speak to each other (i.e., interoperable).

The benefit of this is that, from one dashboard, your team will know overall risk scores and what threats to prioritize. Solving data security issues this way (i.e., with a single suite like Cyber Sierra) has other benefits.

We’ll get to them soon.

First, here’s how our platform makes it all possible. From the ground up, we built it to automate parts of each process. And to solve interoperability issues arising from combating security risks with different tools:

Automate Solving Crucial Data Security Threats with One, Interoperable Platform

How to Automate Mitigating Data Security Challenges

Reality check.

Data breaches arising from failure to mitigate security risks is more likely to happen, per IBM’s recent study. While that’s the reality 87% of companies must deal with, our interest in this study is the role automation plays:

In other words, to maximize such time and money savings highlighted above, consider using some form of automation to:

Cut off all unnecessary manual back and forth required to implement each risk-countering process. Examples include ongoing employee awareness training, cloud misconfiguration scans, third-party vendor risk assessments, etc.
Automatically consolidate results from each process into a single view, so stakeholders can see your company’s cyber hygiene in real-time. This simplifies the process of acquiring and renewing compliance certifications and securing cyber insurance.

With Cyber Sierra, achieving both is within reach.

Say you want to automate solving data security threats arising from cloud misconfigurations. It’ll only take two initial steps.

Integrate your company tools (cloud, network, repository, and Kubernetes) directly on the Cyber Sierra platform:

A few clicks after integration scans your company’s cloud, repository, network, or Kubernetes’ environments. And in real-time, you get a risk registry that gets automatically updated.

Here’s what it’ll look like:

The other benefits to tackling data security issues this way are:

1. Detecting Vulnerabilities Early

As shown above, having a real-time risk registry gives your team one view to see and jump on tackling vulnerabilities early. This can have profound data security risk-mitigating and business impact.

For instance, the IBM study cited earlier also found that:

Your company could be one of those making such savings.

2. Automating Compliance Certifications

The initial effort and costs of getting crucial compliance certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, etc.) depends on one thing: How great your organization’s existing security program is.

Rob Black of Fractional CISO shared this view:

Many clients ask us how much their time/effort is going to cost. The answer is the same… it depends! Do you have a great security program that just needs validation or are you building everything from scratch? The former is going to be a lot less work than the latter.

Rob Black 

Founder, Fractional CISO

Here’s what this means for you.

Automating parts of the various processes of mitigating data security risks reduces the time, effort, and costs required to get compliance certifications.

And with Cyber Sierra, it doesn’t end there.

All your core security modules live in a single, interoperable platform that works well together. So beyond being much easier to get initial certifications, your team can monitor controls continuously, making the renewal of certificates smoother.

It also means you can apply for new compliance programs faster, and from the same dashboard:

3. Securing Cyber Insurance with Ease

To buy life insurance, you must meet certain health conditions.

The same applies to securing cyber insurance to protect your organization, as cybercriminals devise new and more sophisticated data-breaching methods. To get favorable premiums, you need an optimal cyber hygiene posture, which comes from having a mature data security system in place.

Sue from SecurityIntelligence said it best:

Companies that have a mature cyber security system should be ready to meet the requirements set by cyber insurers. Others with less mature systems or that have struggled to meet risk assessment goals during the pandemic will need to be more proactive.

Sue Poremba 

Cybersecurity Writer, SecurityIntelligence

As it is with getting and renewing compliance certifications, so it is with securing and renewing cyber insurance. It starts with automating bits of the processes of solving data security threats. This makes your company more eligible for coverage by improving your cyber posture.

Cyber Sierra helps you achieve all that.

And you can also streamline parts of the process of getting cyber insurance coverage right on our platform:

Stay In the Know, Always

Here’s a CTO’s advice to CTOs:

The CTO should help create a culture that prioritizes security as the responsibility of the whole organization instead of considering it a function of the IT department alone. This requires analyzing security risks at many different levels and engaging everyone in the organization about the necessity of following organizational security practices.

Deepuk Gupta 

CTO & Co-Founder, LoginRadius

From this advice comes the question:

How do you create a culture that prioritizes data security as a responsibility of the whole organization?

Our recommendations:

Launch ongoing employee awareness training programs to keep employees in the know of security updates, always. This will protect your company from internal errors and negligence.
Automate ongoing cloud misconfiguration scans to keep your IT team in the know of vulnerabilities to prioritize. This protects you from external actors looking for exploitable data-breaching loopholes.
Automate third-party risk management to keep vendors in the know of data security assessments they must complete to continue working with you. This saves you from getting breached through 3rd parties who access your networks.

All these are easier with Cyber Sierra:

Automate Solving Crucial Data Security Threats with One, Interoperable Platform

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Comply With Australian CIRMP Rules

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If you’re an Australian organization handling critical infrastructure assets, you have less than three months to be CIRMP (Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program) compliant! All responsible entities must implement a risk management program as per CIRMP rules by 17 August 2023.

Here’s a quick lowdown on the CIRMP rules. Read on to know if you need to comply, and, if yes, what should you implement before the deadline to meet the core CIRMP requirements.

For the uninitiated, on 17 February 2023, the Australian Government introduced the CIRMP rule. Governed by the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (SOCI Act), this is the latest rule introduced by the Australian government to safeguard the country against global cyber threats and uplift the core security practices of critical infrastructure (CI) assets.

What is CIRMP?

CIRMP stands for Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program. It is a set of requirements that entities responsible for critical infrastructure assets (CIAs) must meet under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Rules 2023 in Australia.

The rule states that entities responsible for CIAs must implement a critical infrastructure risk management program by 17 August 2023.

What is material risk?

A material risk as per CIRMP is a risk that has a significant impact on the ability of a critical infrastructure asset to perform its critical functions. This could include risks that could lead to the impairment, stoppage, loss of access to, or interference with the asset.

Section 6 (a-e) of the Rules provides the parameters of a material risk.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has provided some guidance on what constitutes a material risk in the context of the CIRMP. This guidance includes the following factors:

The likelihood of the risk occurring.
The impact of the risk if it does occur.
The criticality of the asset to the economy or society.
The cost of implementing measures to mitigate the risk.

The concept of material risk, however, isn’t absolute and each entity will need to assess the risks to its own assets on a case-by-case basis.

Here are some examples of material risks that could affect critical infrastructure assets:

A cyber attack that could disrupt or disable the asset’s IT systems.

A physical attack that could damage or destroy the asset.

A natural disaster that could cause the asset to be unavailable.

A human error that could lead to the asset being misused or damaged.

The CIRMP requires entities responsible for critical infrastructure assets to identify and assess the material risks to their assets. This assessment should be documented in the CIRMP and should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. The entity should also implement measures to mitigate the material risks to its assets.

A ‘material risk’ to a critical infrastructure asset occurs when the risk has a

‘relevant impact’ on the asset. Section 6 (a-e) of the Rules provides the parameters

of a material risk.

These include the risk of impairment, stoppage, loss of access to or interference

with the asset.

What is a relevant impact?

A ‘relevant impact’ is an impact on the availability, integrity, and reliability of the

asset, and the impact on the confidentiality of information about the asset,

information stored in the asset if any, and, if the asset is computer data, the

computer data.

The relevant impact may be direct or indirect. It must be more serious than a

reduction in the quality of service being provided.

Why is the CIRMP Rule Important?

The CIRMP rule is important because it helps Australia’s critical infrastructure entities uplift their core security practices that relate to managing their critical infrastructure assets. It does so helping create a robust and proactive risk management program for organizations.

Market disruptions have increased the adoption of digital transformation among many businesses. While technologies such as automation, data processing, cloud, and AI improve productivity, security threats are also growing in intensity and complexity.

So, when your CI asset is disrupted by security threats, it can affect your business, the government, and the community. All of this can even damage the country’s economic growth.

Therefore, the only goal of CIRMP is to help Australian entities such as yours create a solid security program that will uplift the core security practices of your CI assets. When you have a strong security program as per the CIRMP rules, it’ll help you to,

Safely provide services that the economy and community rely on
Quickly bounce back from incidents that affect your critical assets
Uphold your brand’s public perception and financial stability

To fully understand how the CIRMP rule came into place, you must know what the SOCI (Security of Critical Infrastructure) 2018 Act is about.

Compliance with CIRMP rules is not merely a matter of checking boxes; it is an ongoing process that requires organizations to fully implement and abide by the law’s principles. The CIRMP rules demand a comprehensive approach, with a particular emphasis on fortifying the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure.

This endeavour necessitates the collective effort of the entire vendor ecosystem, urging them to address any shortcomings and improve their practices.

Quick Rewind on the SOCI Act

The SOCI Act was amended in 2018 to improve the resilience of CI assets against security threats through carefully laid regulatory reforms and amendments. It was passed in two phases,

The first phase in December 2021 – Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Act
The second phase in April 2022 – Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure Protection) Act

Together these two amendments form a framework with the following features:

Government Direction and Intervention (in effect since Dec 2021)

Positive Security Obligations – What Responsible Entities Need to Do to Ensure Compliance?

Who must comply with the CIRMP Rules?

The CIRMP rules apply to all Australian entities that own and manage critical infrastructure assets. The Australian government has outlined 11 critical infrastructure sectors and 22 categories of CI assets that must comply with CIRMP, including entities that manage CI assets. This includes critical financial services assets, critical energy assets, and others.

For detailed definitions of asset rules, click here.

How to comply with Australia’s CIRMP Rules?

Organizations can comply with Australia’s CIRMP rules by following these four steps:

Step 1 – Describe CIRMP requirements based on your CI assets

Step 2 – Define the four key hazard vectors of your CI assets

Step 3 – Submit annual reports to the Commonwealth regulator

Step 4 – Maintain, review, and update CIRMP

Organizations must develop, maintain and update their CIRMP. Here’s a detailed overview of how you can achieve each of these steps.

Step 1: Describe the CIRMP requirements

Here’s a basic list of what you need to complete to develop your CIRMP.

Identify and document hazards, such as cyber & information security, personnel, supply chain, and physical security & natural hazards, that pose material risks to your CI assets. Next, determine the impact on the availability, dependability, and integrity of CI assets. Finally, develop strategies to minimize risks.
Determine interdependency between the CI assets so mitigating circumstances can be broadened.
Choose who will be responsible for creating, executing, reviewing, and updating your CIRMP
Decide how CIRMP will be created, enforced, inspected, and updated.
Outline the risk management frameworks and methodologies used.

Before you proceed further, here’s a quick look at the hazards that must be covered.

Step 2 – Define the four key hazard vectors of your CI assets

Here’s how you can identify hazards that pose material risks to your CI assets and mitigate their impact.

Cyber & information security hazards

This comprises risks to your digital systems, computers, datasets, and networks that can affect the working of your CI assets. You need to state the cyber and information security hazards that could impact your CI assets.

Some of the biggest cyber threats include,

Phishing
Malware
Ransomware
Credential harvesting
Denial-of-service (DoS)

How to address them?

To minimize and eliminate these risks, as a responsible entity you must,

Introduce risk management practices – Scan assets, catch vulnerabilities, access impacts, and employ relevant measures to monitor and fix the risks

Add security measures across every product used in your business – Run scans, address vulnerabilities before deployment, and add security to every product development

Invest in employee education – Run awareness & training programs related to cyber security risks, conduct counter-phishing campaigns, and help employees detect phishing emails

Get insurance – Consider investing in the right insurance plan to protect your business and bypass expensive security breaches

Third-Party Risk Management – Mitigate the risks by vendors (suppliers, third parties, or business partners) before and during your partnership by implementing appropriate Third-party risk management (TPRM) practices

Here are some of the cyber frameworks you can consider implementing. Make sure to follow one that is appropriate for your CI assets. Note that there are no restrictions related to frameworks; if these aren’t suitable, you can choose a different one.

Australian Standard AS ISO.IEC 27001:2015
Essential Eight Maturity Model by the Australian Signals Directorate – Level 1 maturity is required (click here to learn more about the levels)
Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology
Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model by US Department of Energy – Level 1 maturity is required
The 2020-21 AESCSF Framework Core published by Australian Energy Market – Level 1 maturity is required

Personnel hazards

Personnel hazards cover workers and contractors who access sensitive information about your CI assets. You must, therefore, define activities such as proper onboarding, offboarding, background checks, and setting access controls for personnel.

How to address them?

Identify critical workers who access, control, and manage critical assets. And closely monitor them
Set authorized access controls for both physical and digital assets
Use services such as AusCheck or others to do a proper background check of critical workers
Conduct regular cyber security training for critical workers

Supply chain hazards

Unauthorized access to the supply chain, upsetting the supply chain assets, and vendor risks are some of the hazards you must consider here.

You can consider measures to establish and maintain a system that prevents unauthorized access to the supply chain, misuse of given access, upsetting the supply chain assets, and bypassing threats in the supply chain caused by products, services, and personnel.

How to address them?

Identify your supply chain process. List down who your vendors are, the countries they are from, and who the owners of your vendors are, and outline any third-party dependencies
Include proper cyber security in all of your supply chain agreements
Identify supply chain bottlenecks to diversify vendors
Implement physical security & make allowance for natural hazards

Physical and natural hazards

You must also address illegal physical access and natural hazards to critical components. So, don’t forget to make a note of the risks of such occurrences alongside the steps to mitigate their impact.

How to address them?

Identify the critical physical components and their security hazards. Outline all the natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and pandemics, that could affect your critical assets. This must also include biological hazards.
Secure control systems through onsite measures and access controls with the use of HVAC, cameras, and fire alarm panels
Create security drills to build infrastructure resilience
Develop and maintain a bushfire survival plan
Enforce physical access controls such as biometrics
Install CCTV sensors to help your security staff better monitor things

Step 3 – Submit annual reports to the Commonwealth regulator

You need to submit your annual CIRMP reports to the applicable Commonwealth regulator by the end of the Australian financial year (28th September). This way, the Cyber Infrastructure Security Centre (CISC) and other related regulators can check if the program remains up-to-date. Besides, these entities can further advise you on the measures to strengthen the security of your CI assets.

Step 4 – Maintain, review, and update CIRMP

The SOCI also requires organizations to maintain the CIRMP status. You can accomplish by:

Comply – Comply with the CIRMP rules
Review – Maintain a process to review CIRMP every 12 months
Update – Ensure the program is up to date

How to Strengthen Your Compliance & Security Requirements As Per CIRMP Rules?

This endeavour necessitates the collective effort of the entire vendor ecosystem, urging them to address any shortcomings and improve their practices.

Cyber Sierra’s ThirdParty Risk Management module is custom-built to help organizations up their security game in accordance with the CIRMP rules. The automation platform is equipped to assist you in various areas, including developing new risk management practices, implementing appropriate security measures for your assets, educating your employees about cyber risks, adhering to sound TPRM practices, and making informed cyber insurance investments.

Our specialized continuous controls monitoring is designed to ensure you maintain complete control and serves as effective “reasonable security measures” in the event of a breach, preventing hefty penalties. Moreover, continuous control monitoring surpasses the limited sample-based testing of controls provided by audit firms; it is comprehensive, ongoing, and supported by data.

Schedule a free demo with our cybersecurity experts to learn how to enhance your risk management program in accordance with the Australian CIRMP rules.

FAQs

Which are the sectors that come under Australia’s CIRMP obligation?

The following sectors are subject to the Australian CIRMP obligations:

Energy
Water and Sewerage
Data Storage
Financial Services
Transportation
Food and Grocery
Healthcare and Medical
Communications

What does the CIRMP require of organizations?

The CIRMP requires organizations to address four main areas: cyber and information security hazards, personnel hazards, supply chain hazards, and physical security and natural hazards.

In each of these areas, organizations must identify risks that could affect their assets, minimize or eliminate those risks, and mitigate the impact of any hazards on their assets. Specifically, in the cyber and information security domain, organizations need to comply with established cybersecurity standards and frameworks.

Australian Standard AS ISO.IEC 27001:2015
Essential Eight Maturity Model by the Australian Signals Directorate – Level 1 maturity is required (click here to learn more about the levels)
Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology
Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model by US Department of Energy – Level 1 maturity is required
The 2020-21 AESCSF Framework Core published by Australian Energy Market – Level 1 maturity is required
A framework equivalent to any of the above

The deadline for implementing a CIRMP and complying with the controls is August 17, 2023, with full compliance required by August 17, 2024.

What is the penalty for failing to comply with CIRMP?

If a company doesn’t have or follow a CIRMP, it can be fined 1,000 penalty units or $275,000 per day. This applies to not meeting the obligations of the CIRMP, except for the annual reporting requirement, which carries a fine of 750 penalty units or $206,250 per day if not met. These penalties also apply if a company fails to fully implement their CIRMP.

Cyber Sierra’s continuous control monitoring offers ‘reasonable security measures’ in the event of a breach, preventing companies from paying hefty penalties for noncompliance.

Disclaimer – Detailed regarding the rules mentioned in this blog were sourced from CIRMP rules and SOCI act shared by the Australian Government. The contents of this blog are not a substitute for legal advice. You must always get professional advice or help for matters your organization may have.

Srividhya Karthik

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