For most organizations, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is tedious, confusing, and downright frustrating. Most SMBs are unfamiliar with the regulation. Some choose to ignore it, wrongfully thinking they aren’t subject to the compliance due to their size or customer base. Surprisingly, GDPR is one of the most far reaching compliance and covers many gray areas. Regardless whether or not non-compliance could cost your organization crippling or even mission ending fines, implementing data privacy practices is just good business.
There are several data privacy best practices that can not only minimize your risk of breaches and fines but can also enhance your overall data security. We developed a multi phased methodology to guide you through the process. With the guidance of our experts, we can enable you to focus on your business while we focus on the processes and technology necessary to protect your organization.
Gather
In the first phase, we work with you to gather your information. We collect questionnaires, assessments, and perform environment scans on your network. During this phase we will have weekly meetings with you to scan the network environment for assets and data that must be brought into compliance. Our guidance with several detailed questionnaires allows us to determine your current security posture and what gaps must be filled.
Assess
Once this information is collected, we assess the findings. During this phase we will have regular meetings with you to document the identified issues which must be addressed as a whole. We establish the process to develop plans and scopes to properly remediate the highest priority issues. This phase allows us to review all necessary information needed to make informed decisions.
Remediate
Then we can creation a remediation plan. During this phase we will produce all regularly scheduled mandatory reports as required by GDPR. We make recommendations and prioritize the findings. Our end results allow us to utilize template policies to create necessary documentation. Action items in this phase include cleaning up data and implementing technology projects.
Compliance
As a general rule, completing the steps to compliance and then taking no further actions will not do you any good. As compliance is continuous, after the initial remediation is complete, we will meet with you quarterly to provide regular, automated network scans to detect any new or ongoing issues. We must also identify potential threats, and provide alert notifications of new threats that occur.
Throughout the process we are available to you for ongoing assistance. We are here for any additional questions you may have as your organization grows and changes. Not only will this methodology make you GDPR compliant, it will also employ data privacy best practices throughout your organization. The most important thing to remember is our goal isn’t only to be GDPR compliant; it is to protect our data and our client’s data from potential data breaches.