The paradigm shift toward remote working began even before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Since then, local and national directives have confined large portions of the population to their homes. As a result, many businesses have continued operating using a distributed workforce, and some, like Shopify and Twitter, have made remote working permanent.
These new circumstances demand a different security stance than working from centralized offices. Especially when it comes to maintaining the data security that the GDPR requires.
If you’re suddenly managing remote teams, it can be daunting to think about data security with everything else that’s going on. The GDPR, in general, requires that companies keep personal data private and secure.
This article will show you how, with a few simple actions, you can help ensure you stay GDPR compliant even as your team is spread out.
Now’s a good time to update your cybersecurity policy
Many employees who are not familiar with data security issues may not grasp how a simple slip-up on their part could lead to a data breach that exposes the personal data you are charged to protect. These data breaches can not only undermine consumer confidence in your company but also lead to costly GDPR fines.
A cybersecurity policy that instructs your employees on how to keep your business’s data safe is an important tool in data protection. If you don’t have one, you should make one. If you have a policy but haven’t updated it since everyone began working from home, this is the time to do so. A good place to start is by reviewing the NIST cybersecurity framework, which provides you with a set of best-practice guidelines for all stages of threat identification and mitigation.
The NIST framework covers five areas, all of which are essential components of a successful cybersecurity framework:
Identify
You should develop an understanding of your environment in order to assess the level of cybersecurity risk to systems, assets, data, and capabilities.
Protect
You should develop and implement the appropriate safeguards to limit or contain the impact of a potential cybersecurity event. This involves controlling access to digital and physical assets, but also the responsibility to provide education and training to all employees.
Detect
You should have the ability to identify cybersecurity incidents quickly. This means using a system that can undertake continuous monitoring to detect unusual activity and other threats to operational continuity.
Respond
If a cyberattack occurs, organizations must have the ability to contain the impact. This means you will need to have a response plan in place. Once you have resolved your cybersecurity incident, you will need to update your response plan with any lessons learned.
Recover
Finally, you should have a plan to restore any capabilities or services that were affected by cybersecurity incidents.