3 Steps You Can Take When Your Security Compliance Is Taking Too Long

Let’s face it, security compliance can be a real pain in the neck. It’s essential within the business landscape, and you can’t go without it. 

But getting ready for security audits, prepping policies, drafting compliance documents, making sure you’ve got all the right evidence, etc., can actually take months. 

You’re lucky if you get away with 3 weeks in total, and that’s before anything’s been presented to anyone! And when you need to be audit-ready ASAP, there’s really no kind of delay you can stomach in good conscience. 

So, what can you do to speed up your business’ security compliance, get on the right side of the law, and keep both your customers and investors happy? Here are 3 steps you can take that might just knock a few days off the timeline.

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Get the Basics Sorted

When you want to move fast, you need to have the basics of business security locked down. 

Because when your foundational infrastructure has clearly been crafted with security in mind, it’s much easier to both expand on these systems and prepare the right policy evidence for further certification. 

Get these things squared away before you do anything else.

Know what compliance rules apply to you

Not every set of data protection rules are going to cover your industry or location, so you need to be sure you’re not accidentally trying to incorporate a set of rules that don’t apply. 

For example, you may be concerned with implementing a compliance framework that runs along GDPR, but you only sell to customers within the US.

Get a risk assessment done

Even in the world of cybersecurity, risk assessments are key to making sure you understand how your current security systems are set up, and what weak points potentially live inside them. 

Integrate AI

With the use of AI tools, you can implement an automation system that takes stock of your infrastructure, workflows, and evidence prep as is, and then pulls it all back for you to look at at once. 

And that’s not just the one time either; AI tools can do so again and again, basically whenever you need it to. 

As such, the time it takes to be fully audit-ready in the face of security compliance procedures can be halved at the least. Indeed, a compliance automation platform can speed up the security compliance process rather dramatically, and even knock weeks off of the final product. 

You’re not needing to do anywhere near as much legwork to check you’ve got the right, most up to date data (although you will still need to manually check evidence before you plan to use it). 

Invest in Training

Lastly, you don’t want a simple mistake like clicking on a phishing link to slow down the process any further. Make sure your employees are fully trained on current internet safety, data protection, and privacy controls within the workplace.

Security compliance takes an age. Get on top of your timeline with tips like these.