How To Recover After Failing A Cybersecurity Audit
Digital Defense, Friday, January 12th, 2024
While it's important to adhere to compliance regulations, blunders do happen. What does it mean when these blunders lead to you failing a cybersecurity audit, and how can you recover?
Consequences of Failing a Cybersecurity Audit
Failing a cybersecurity audit can mean several things.
First, there's the up-front legal fines that come with falling on the wrong side of compliance. Here are a few illustrative examples.
- PCI DSS - The payment card industry will exact fines ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 (depending on the size and scope of your crime and company) every month until you get back in line.
- HIPAA - Civil monetary penalties for HIPAA violations range from as little as $100 to as much as $50,000 per violation, and an audit could turn up several of those.
- SOX - The stakes are high for failing to accurately report financial data, and almost make non-compliance the 'last mistake you'll ever make' with fines as high as $5 million dollars and up to 20 years in prison. And that's not even mentioning the additional SEC penalties (from $50k to $2.5 million a pop) and the potential to lose your stock exchange listing.
And, legal ramifications for state and government privacy violations can extend beyond fines alone. You can face time in prison for serious GDPR infringement. Those who fail to meet California's CCPA standards are open to individual or class action lawsuits.