How to Ensure Regulatory Compliance in Data Centers

When they first emerged, businesses relied upon highly controlled physical data center locations. However, today the cloud environment is the dominating model, and this has created challenges for data centers when it comes to achieving and maintaining compliance. Today, data centers must ensure they achieve regulatory compliance relative to the industries and customers they serve.

Given that data centers collect, process, store and disseminate extremely large amounts of data across multiple private, public and hybrid clouds, decision-makers must go the extra mile to ensure they take the proper steps to be compliant. If a cyberattack or data breach occurs that exposes sensitive data, this is a disastrous situation.

To ensure you have consistent data center compliance, your company can take the following steps to substantially reduce the risks. Doing so will help you to mitigate any regulatory and industry penalties associated with being targeted by cyber criminals. Being proactive can also alleviate high costs involved with a major cybersecurity incident.

Perform Assessments

When it comes to compliance, it is critical to routinely perform assessments to identify any potential gaps. This assessment will not only point out weaknesses but also any strengths and opportunities you could gain.

• Identify industry risks and determine what compliance standards apply
• Determine what the outcome would be if the identified risks were realized
• Prioritize risks in order to the most likely to occur and what would be most problematic
• Examine current controls to mitigate risks and identify any gaps or areas of non-compliance
• Implement controls and validate their ability to work through testing

These steps are not a one-and-done process. Be sure to regularly reevaluate data center risks and the controls being used to maintain compliance. Then, make updates as the business evolves, such as after expansions, installation of new equipment, changes that occur in domestic or international regulation or any other event that might create a lapse in compliance.

Policies and Procedures

Every data center needs to establish policies and procedures to prevent data loss or theft. In terms of compliance, it’s important to develop comprehensive guidelines that align with regulations so their customers are also compliant. Some of the most common regulations include:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Sarbanes Oxley Act
• System and Organization Controls (SOC 2 Type II Reports)
• Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE 18)
• International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC 27001: 2013)
• California Consumer Privacy Act/California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA)
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Data centers are expected to adhere to practices that empower them to achieve accreditation by an authorized agency that verifies the center’s practices, policies and protocols are aligned with regulatory and industry requirements.

Security Measures

Demonstrating compliance not only better safeguards data, but it also shows transparency and commitment to the public they take data security seriously. Actions that align with achieving compliance include:

• Developing robust controls
• Using high-level encryption
• Implementing intrusion detection
• Adding physical security measures

Implementing these security measures is complex at the enterprise level, but it is an important component of doing business. Keep in mind you must also perform proper data classification and establish strong data retention policies.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

To ensure data integrity and availability, you’ll want to invest in a robust disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Oftentimes, these two terms are used interchangeably, but there are key differences.

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery (DR) plans are established plans that react to an incident, such as a major power outage or cyberattack. It puts a focus on restoring IT infrastructure and data access as quickly as possible. DR plans typically go beyond technology, establishing emergency procedures for personnel and other operational priorities.

Business Continuity

Business continuity plans (BCP) are a proactive process that establishes a plan for keeping an organization operational in the event a significant disruption occurs. The goal is to limit, or even eliminate downtime, by establishing steps to take in the event it occurs. Depending on the business, you’ll want to choose a hot, warm, or cold site. Hot sites are the costliest, but also essentially mirror operations to ensure no disruption occurs.

At the bottom line, a data center should establish both a DR and BCP to ensure all its proverbial bases are covered and get operations up and running as quickly as possible to allow for data availability, while simultaneously maintaining data integrity.

Managed Service Providers

Working with a managed service provider, such as Red River, is a proactive step toward achieving compliance. When you work with an MSP, you gain access to a team that collectively possesses a wide array of technology, compliance, and cybersecurity knowledge and experience.

Your MSP can also provide you with enhanced security capabilities, 24/7 monitoring, scalability for when you need it and cost optimization. Running cybersecurity while ensuring compliance is a full-time job in itself. It is difficult to focus on your core competencies, such as speed, storage capacity and scalability, while juggling compliance.

Relying upon a trustworthy MSP that is equipped to help you adhere to industry best practices and achieve/maintain data center regulatory compliance.  At Red River, we are well positioned to help you accomplish the above steps to achieve compliance and more.

Contact Red River Today to Learn How We Can Help You Achieve Compliance

Red River is a cybersecurity/IT managed services business that serves data centers all along the East Coast. When you partner with us, you’ll gain access to complete data center solutions and direct access to certified experts.

Ready to bolster your data center and achieve compliance? Contact Red River today to get the conversation started. We’ll discuss your needs and help you determine what solutions we can provide so you can rest assured your center is completely compliant with all international and domestic laws.