This article shares the key reasons why most companies fail at compliance. With this, you will find the best possible ways to overcome the compliance issues. Keep reading to explore these problems.
In today’s digital world, cyber threats are one of the primary risks for businesses. According to IBM Security, the average data breaching cost reached $4.45 million in 2024, which is 10% more than the last year. Therefore, cybersecurity has become more crucial than ever. However, the availability of numerous cybersecurity options makes it overwhelming for businesses to choose the best way to make their systems secure.
That is where governance risk and compliance (GRC) comes into play. GRC serves as a roadmap for businesses to manage their cybersecurity issues effectively. However, many companies are failing at this compliance. Are you wondering what the reasons behind this failure are? This article is for you. Here, The Academic Papers UK experts share the top reasons behind it.
Before moving on to these reasons, let’s explore the meaning of GRC in cybersecurity.
What is GRC in Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity in GRC is based on the strategic approach that empowers organisations to mitigate potential cyber risks. It also ensures compliance with industry standards and allows businesses to achieve their business objectives. Additionally, this integrated model helps organisations in the following ways:
- Make sure the compliance with the industry standards
- Spot and reduce the potential risks
- Incorporate the cyber security approaches with the business goals
Overall, cybersecurity offers a framework for businesses to effectively address cyber issues, improve resilience, and protect their assets.
3 Key Elements of Cybersecurity GRC
Below are the three key elements of GRC cybersecurity.
1. Governance
Governance is one of the most important elements of GRC cybersecurity. This consists of making policies and structures to ensure cybersecurity within the organisation. It also ensures that the management has the current information to make effective decisions to secure the company.
To understand what governance is in cybersecurity, imagine that the management of the IT company designs a framework for cybersecurity governance that outlines the responsibilities of the employees. There must be regular audits and reviews conducted to ensure adherence to these governance policies.
2. Risk Management
Risk management is one of the most critical aspects of GRC cybersecurity. This refers to identifying, evaluating, and mitigating potential security threats. It is said without any doubt that proper risk management demands responsible choices to use the resources to effectively control, analyse, and reduce security risks. For effective risk management, businesses analyse various factors, including the impacts of organisations, the ratio of security breaches, and the cost of the implementation of security policies.
3. Compliance
Compliance is the regulations under which an organisation, industry, or business operates. And if we talk about compliance in cybersecurity, then it means adherence to the laws, practices, and policies that govern cybersecurity practices. Organisations need to meet these regulations to avoid the legal consequences regarding cybersecurity. Moreover, these standards are designed to get a certain level of trust from customers in the organisation.
4 Reasons Why Companies Fail at Compliance
Unfortunately, compliance failure in cybersecurity is one of the common challenges that businesses face. As per the report by Steven Rosen, 60%-90% of companies fail at compliance, which affects their overall growth. Various factors contribute to this higher failure rate, which we are going to discuss here.
Let’s discuss them one by one.
1. Lack of Awareness
Nowadays, regulations are transforming more than ever, and remaining up-to-date with them now becomes a necessity. But the question is, with the long stream of updates, how would you know what is needed to be applied to your business? The most striking thing is that most of the companies are unaware that they need to comply. Yes, you read it right. According to a report by Sprinto, more than 20% of UK companies admitted that they even realise they need to comply.
To overcome this issue, companies have to follow these steps:
- Companies have to invest in authentic tools or platforms that keep them updated about the relevant changes in the industry. These tools make sure that you are always on the lookout for all the significant updates.
- Businesses can also subscribe to the trusted newsletter, which offers in-depth industry insights to make sure that you stay ahead of changes that are being introduced in the market recently.
2. Inadequate Training
Some companies overlook handling compliance in employee training. This training is significantly helpful in mitigating cyber threats. However, many companies fail to train their employees enough so they can navigate through the security landscape successfully.
Companies can follow the below steps to effectively overcome this problem:
- The first thing that a company must do is to spread awareness about security by shifting the security from individuals’ responsibilities to everyone. This will create a security culture which eventually educates the whole team about the intricacies of cybersecurity.
- Apart from general awareness, companies have to train the designated security experts. For example, your IT department is more engaged in security issues as compared to other employees so you have to train them to identify technical errors, issues, etc.
- Conduct engaging microlearning sessions with the use of the latest technology in place of tractional energy-draining seminars.
3. Lapses in Data Accuracy and Security
Generally, businesses collect personal information to deliver better, personalised, and effective customer engagement. This data collection must be carried out transparently, and no information should be used without the consent of the individuals.
However, most organisations fail to collect this data transparently, which eventually leads them to violation of the rules. Additionally, many companies rely on third-party vendors for this information. This approach significantly increases privacy lapses and becomes a common cybersecurity threat.
- They must invest in robust and advanced cybersecurity tools that can effectively detect threats, ensure data encryption, and prevent unauthorised data success.
- Businesses should keep check of the third-party vendors to ensure that they are following the organisations’ security standards.
- By using advanced monitoring tools, businesses can monitor the data to address any potential risk effectively.
4. Insufficient Internal Audits
It is saying, without any doubt, that humans see themselves and others in the optimal perspective. This optimism can create problems in the business world during internal audits when shortcomings are overlooked. When these small issues remain unaddressed, they lead the organisation to external audit failure. As a consequence of this failure, they may face the risk of falling, leading to penalties, reputational damage, or more.
Businesses can take the following steps to effectively overcome this issue.
- Take the help of the external consultants who don’t work under the organisation’s supervision and provide a fresh perspective that eventually leads them to successfully identify the issues in the internal audits that are being overlooked.
- Create a dedicated team for internal audits who are qualified enough to work independently of your IT teams.
- Use compliance monitoring software that can effectively track the security policies’ implementation and make the data collection easier.
- Make sure that the auditors at the company follow a separate reporting structure and allow you to maintain objectivity.
How does Non-compliance Affect the Business?
In general, organisations face various serious consequences due to not following compliance. These consequences of non-compliance are widespread and eventually affect the company’s credibility, reputation, and growth. Additionally, this badly affects the business in the following ways:
- Non-compliance surely brings financial penalties for organisations.
- One of the most negative impacts of non-compliance is that it can severely damage the business’s reputation, which eventually reduces its sales.
- The legal repercussions are severe in case of not following the compliance. This legal repercussion can range from imprisonment to financial penalties.
Owing to the importance of compliance, in many universities, teachers ask business students to write an essay on this crucial topic. However, due to the complexity of this topic, they find it hard to write an essay. In this scenario, they can reach out to reliable essay-writing agencies which can help them in crafting this piece of paper
Conclusion
Governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) provide a roadmap for organisations to handle their cybersecurity issues effectively. To ensure that cybersecurity policies align with the goals, organisations have to make sure that they take into account all three elements of GRC.
However, most of the companies fail to comply, which becomes the key reason for their sales drop and affects their reputation badly. This non-compliance has many reasons, including inadequate training, lack of awareness, lapse in data accuracy, and insufficient internal audit. To overcome these issues, companies can follow the effective steps that we have outlined in this article.
Author Bio
Cameron Greenwood is an essay writer and a business expert who aims to help companies increase their growth. With his writing expertise, Greenwood educates business owners on how to adhere to the industry standards to achieve their long-term goals.
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