Compliance Consulting Saves Businesses

Many firms that suffer from cyber-breaches not only struggle financially, but their credibility within their industry may also be jeopardized. This can lead to customers losing trust in the company, resulting in loss of potential sales and a struggle to regain customer trust. For these reasons, compliance with federal, industry, and/or cyber regulations is mandatory for businesses and organizations to save themselves from devastating consequences of becoming non-compliant.

What exactly is compliance? Compliance is the confirmation that the doer of an action, or the manufacturer or supplier of a product, meets the requirements of accepted practices, legislation, prescribed rules and regulations, specified standards, or the terms of a contract[1]. It is important for a business or organization to always be aware of the regulations they are operating within. Organizations become the most vulnerable to cyber-attacks when their regulations are not consistently checked for compliance.

Some news media outlets focused more on recent large corporations’ cyber-breaches, such as: Yahoo, JP Chase Morgan, Target, and Sony Pictures. However, the biggest impact from cyber-breaches occurs at the smaller business level. According to Trustwave, “71% of cyber-attacks happen at businesses with less than 100 employees.” Trustwave continues, “80% of those small businesses that suffer a breach go out of business after 18 months”[2]. Todd McCracken, President of the National Small Business Association, provided on the subject at the Small Business Committee’s hearing in Washington on April 22, 2015. “Many small companies are not in a position to have a dedicated IT department, and many either outsource IT functions or assign such duties to an employee with other responsibilities—often the owner him/herself. In fact, the number of business owners who personally handle IT support appears to be on the rise”[3]. McCracken said, For businesses it is essential to allocate the necessary resources to analyze the company for any compliance gaps. Catching compliance gaps early will allow the company to quickly resolve the issue, saving themselves from suffering the penalties of being non-compliant. Wilson Consulting Group (WCG) recommends a strategic perspective when looking at compliance allowing the organization to be more proactive than reactive. Becoming more proactive will allow companies to catch possible compliance gaps early, leading to positive impacts on costs and performance.

WCG’s compliance program uses real-time information to provide quick and accurate feedback on the current status of our client’s compliance. This is done by strengthening our client’s compliance programs along with improving the current risk mitigation system; this will help improve the security of the system in place. WCG takes great care and goes to great lengths to ensure that client’s issues are correctly identified and completely resolved.

To ensure that our clients are in full compliance with standards, WCG provides a consultation for compliance requirements. WCG has conducted numerous compliance consultations in several industries that include but are not limited to: Financial and Banking, Higher Education, HealthCare, Retail, and Government Entities. WCG guarantees compliance with the following standards: PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, NERC, SOX, GLBA, DoDI.