Cloud compliance is the process of ensuring compliance with national and international regulatory requirements within the scope of cloud computing. The practice also involves seeking compliance with industry best practices using frameworks and benchmarks.
Companies that offer or use cloud-based services must comply with different laws in different territories. In Europe, the current law is the GDPR, while those operating in the US must be aware of the FedRAMP program. In Brazil, for example, they must comply with the General Data Protection Law requirements.
Compliance with these laws needs to be part of your organization’s discussion from the very first planning meeting. To achieve compliance, you must implement robust security measures, conduct regular audits, and continuously monitor for vulnerabilities.
In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of cloud compliance, explore its challenges, and show you how to treat cloud data transparently. Keep reading to learn all about it!
Importance of cloud compliance
Compliance with laws governing data processing in the cloud is essential to protect sensitive data from your customers or partners. In general, the articles in these laws are designed to require the implementation of robust security measures.
This is especially important because businesses are handling more data than ever before. Sensitive information such as credit card details, addresses, and personal documents need to be safeguarded. In addition to customer information, organizations also need to handle proprietary documents, financial records, and intellectual property.
A security breach or a leak of this information can result in heavy fines and the destruction of your company’s reputation. As a result, your company may lose customer loyalty and have difficulties in its relationships with other stakeholders.
Benefits of cloud compliance
By working with cloud compliance, your company doesn’t just follow the rules: it protects its operations, its reputation, and the trust of its customers. Here are the main advantages of being compliant in the cloud:
- Competitive advantage. In highly competitive markets, companies with robust compliance practices can attract customers and partners who value data security and ethical conduct.
- Consumer loyalty. With the growing demand for transparency and data security, people want their information to be managed responsibly. When an organization is committed to this, trust in that brand grows.
- Risk management. Compliance within the context of the cloud is a fundamental part of risk management, helping to mitigate and identify threats associated with the cloud environment.
- Legal compliance. Depending on the market in which your company operates, it may have to comply with the LGPD , GDPR , or FedRAMP — or all of them at once. By complying with these laws, your company can avoid fines or other legal penalties.
- Data privacy. The goal of cloud compliance measures is to protect sensitive data from security breaches that lead to unauthorized access. By implementing these measures, you ensure the secure handling of this information, reducing the risk of leaks.
Main challenges of cloud compliance
Despite all its benefits, cloud computing also requires you to pay attention to some compliance issues. One of the main reasons for this is that, in the cloud model, responsibilities are shared with the service provider.
This means you’ll have to treat this company as a business partner, since you won’t have direct control over their decisions. To help you navigate this situation, we’ve outlined some cloud compliance challenges:
- Shared responsibility. In this model, care must be taken not to end up with misaligned teams and out-of-sync partners. To address this, it is important to choose providers that value transparency and offer a solid Service Level Agreement (SLA).
- Certifications. Both your company and your cloud service provider need to meet the requirements of regulations and standards relevant to your industry. You also need to stay vigilant about new data protection laws and changes to the cloud service status.
- Changing approach to security. Traditional security tools don’t work as well in the cloud. After all, IP addresses are constantly changing, as features are added or removed. As a result, regulatory agencies often require security solutions built specifically for the cloud.
- Data residency. Most data protection laws require that users’ personal information be stored in their home country — or at least within permitted regions. If your business serves multiple continents, you may need to adopt a multi-cloud strategy.
- Frequent changes. One of the greatest advantages of cloud computing is also one of its main challenges: it is an environment that is constantly improving. You need to plan your move to the cloud well and have a plan to deal with the changes that each update will bring to your processes.
How to treat data in the cloud with transparency and compliance
Even if you hire a third-party cloud service, you can’t outsource your compliance responsibilities. You still must report to regulatory agencies and earn the trust of your customers.
This responsibility is shared with the service provider. So much so that platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure already provide in their contracts that they will take care of their own side of compliance.
This still leaves your company responsible for the other half of the responsibilities. To help you deal with all of this, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide on how to handle data in the cloud with transparency and compliance:
1. Define the shared responsibility model
Both your company and the cloud service provider have a certain level of responsibility regarding security and compliance. The level of commitment of each will depend on the service model: Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Typically, the cloud service provider is responsible for ensuring that everything is in order with the cloud infrastructure — including physical servers, networks, and databases. The company that hires their services must take care of the compliance of the data stored in the cloud, as well as manage user access.
2. Create a governance structure
One fundamental step in achieving cloud compliance is implementing a robust governance system. In other words, mechanisms, processes, and policies to control and monitor the cloud environment.
Define components such as risk management, change management, and policy management. By creating this entire governance framework, you ensure that you have a structured approach to managing cloud operations.
This allows you to comply with the laws of the countries where you operate. If you do everything right at this stage, your company will also follow industry standards and organizational policies.
3. Develop a compliance strategy
Assess the legislation in force in the region where your organization operates, considering the nature of the data in its possession and the industry in which it operates. If you are going to have a branch in Europe, it is a good idea to check the GDPR. If you are operating in Brazil, read the LGPD and so on.
Once you have all the information, you should write down the actions needed to ensure compliance in the first place. Then, create documentation of what you need to do to maintain it in the months and years that follow.
Schedule regular internal audits and security reports. These audits help you find flaws in your processes and highlight work that needs to be done.
When you combine this with detailed reporting, you can make better decisions and formulate better policies in the future. These elements should be treated as important milestones in your compliance system.
4. Keep your documentation up to date
It’s not enough to just create documents; you must also update them regularly. This includes policy files, procedure manuals, audit reports, incident logs, and compliance certifications.
Not only will this make it easier to prove your compliance to auditors and regulators, it will also speed up knowledge exchange and continuity within your company. After all, it allows all stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the compliance requirements and practices within your organization.
5. Continue to monitor and update compliance measures
As you may have already realized, compliance is an ongoing and ever-evolving project. Therefore, you must continue to monitor and update your compliance measures.
This is the only way to ensure that your cloud environment is in line with technological advances and the legislation that accompanies them. You should regularly check the status and performance of your compliance.
If something is not going as planned, you need to review and improve your compliance measures. To do this, you can base your actions on the results of your monitoring, changes in standards, or even your company’s needs.
Conclusion
Completing the implementation of cloud compliance in your organization is not just a matter of meeting legal requirements, but also a necessary strategy for the protection and success of your business.
By following the best practices outlined in this article, your organization will be better prepared to mitigate risk, protect sensitive data, and strengthen customer trust.
Compliance should not be seen as an obstacle, but rather as an opportunity to improve governance, increase competitiveness and foster stronger relationships with partners and consumers. Implementing it consistently is a fundamental step towards sustainable and responsible growth in the digital market.
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