The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR came into full effect a couple of months ago. It is a strict set of rules that mandate tougher data protection for all residents, citizens and companies within the European Union. Since that time, companies throughout the continent have been on tenterhooks, rushing to complete new in-house privacy regulations and doing as much as they can to avoid fines as well as the ensuing reputational damage.
To ensure your business’s success in this new era of stringent data protection, it is important to understand exactly what is needed and why, before implementing a plan to maintain this level of security. It is important to remember that GDPR is not a one-time implementation but an evolution of consistently high security standards. To help you achieve complete compliance, leading supplier of complete IT infrastructure management solutions, chief strategy officer Mike Puglia at Kaseya shares top ten tips, take a look below:
- Conduct a Gap Analysis and Compliance Assessment:
A gap analysis is a useful way to show exactly where your organisation is already in compliance, revealing existing compliance programme trends within the company as well as highlighting which areas need work and steps that must be taken to ensure complete adherence. This analysis can provide the foundation for a complete compliance assessment and ultimately, a compliance plan. The compliance plan will define what is good and working, and will also recommend specific improvements. - Shine a Light on Shadow IT:
Examples of shadow IT include Dropbox, Skype and Evernote, which are applications, systems and hardware that are used by individuals without company support or sanction. They pose significant compliance risks. If an individual is using a system that you don’t know about, to store or transfer data that comes under GDPR, this puts the company at risk of a breach. Internal policy should be clearly communicated throughout the organisation, as well as keeping a record of doing so, employees should all be aware that they should not be using these systems without company approval. - Understand the Role of Automation:
To manually perform every IT task required to achieve full compliance would be incredibly hard and, open to human error, in some cases, even impossible due to the sheer size of the organisation. Automation of these IT tasks is critical to ensure that they are all completed correctly. Automation is the right platform to complete efficient, repeatable processes and makes sure they are applied to all devices, tracked and reported on. This provides great security and ensures the easier maintenance of GDPR networking. - Consider the Reach of your RMM Solution:
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solutions are a critical compliance tool. This enables admins to consistently monitor and remediate applications, workstations, servers and remote devices. It’s important to implement the right RMM solution for your environment to ensure that IT professionals are informed should issues arise or in case there is a change in the system status which could indicate a potential breach. RMM systems also have the potential to automate common security related IT tasks, reporting them when completed. - Practise Proper Patch Management:
To properly prevent cyber-attacks and data breaches whilst simultaneously proving compliance requires the addition of patch management. A patch management solution should automatically update servers, remote computers and workstations with software and patches, which can also include operating system fixes. This is a crucial yet challenging task for those that rely on manual IT means, so automation of patch management is a simple, efficient way of ensuring this is carried out correctly. - Deploy an Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware Solution:
To completely ensure full GDPR compliance, all endpoints must be protected, and that protection must always be up to date. The right protection deployed across your entire system will maximise defences against malicious software and will work to eliminate any incursions that lead to damaging data breaches. These solutions are packed full of robust, network protecting features, are able to spot threats early, and can be automated to install security updates throughout your infrastructure. - Harden Protection Through 2FA/MFA:
Single sign-on (SSO), two-factor (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) are each key tools in controlling who has access to data on your network, perfect for monitoring and securing confidential documents and information. MFA and 2FA means the end user has to verify their identity in two to several different ways before being granted access. IAM includes centralised credential management, policy based rules and SSO for end users, which has the potential to keep all internal systems compliant. Each of these are crucial tools in access management which works to keep your entire network compliant. - Secure Mobile Devices:
Mobile devices are often overlooked in the world of GDPR compliance but in actual fact, they should be as compliant as their desktop counterparts. Applications can have offline functions which means that any data transferred via that app, will also be stored locally on the device which can fall outside of your network’s security, breaching your GDPR guidelines and leaving this data at risk. This means that all apps, both supported and shadowed, should be reviewed regularly to minimise risk. - Decommission Devices:
Any type of device that is lost, or stolen, should be decommissioned immediately to prevent anyone else from procuring confidential company data through it. The same policy should apply to equipment belonging to ex-employees, particularly when an employee has been terminated. There should be a protocol put in place where your IT department can quickly and completely deactivate a user, removing all of their permissions to the network. Another part of the decommissioning process is that of data destruction, the correct WEEE protocols must be followed to make sure the data is fully destroyed and untraceable. - Choose the Right Compliance Solution:
Tying each of the above points together into one solution, is the right compliance solution. Kaseya offer a wide range of solutions which address the new GDPR and are integrated solutions tailored to each business’s needs. Their suite of IT solutions helps to keep your organisation safe, secure and compliant.
It is important to keep up to date with trends and changes within GDPR to consistently ensure your company’s compliance and although it may seem like a mammoth task, automation goes a long way in alleviating the work load whilst providing tracking and reporting of all critical tasks.
