Regulation, Accreditation or Standard?

About this interactive

Regulation: some authority, such as a government or a regulator, has put rules or laws in place, and the organization has to follow them. Privacy laws, breach notification laws and a regulator's rules are regulations. Accreditation: something an organization opts in to. It asks an outside body to review it, so that the review gives what it does legitimacy. The lesson's example is a college or university that gets accredited so its education is trusted. Hospitals, testing labs and the bodies that issue security certificates are accredited the same way. (When a company has an auditor check its security against ISO/IEC 27001, the usual word for what it earns is certification; the idea, an outside review sought for trust, is the same.) Standard: the bar. It is what has to be met to become accredited or to be compliant: a list of requirements, a minimum to reach, a set of controls to be measured against. ISO/IEC 27001's requirements and PCI DSS's requirements are standards. To sort a card, ask: is this a rule someone in authority imposes, a review the organization chose to go through, or the bar it is measured against?

What you'll learn

Tell a regulation, a rule an authority puts in place that has to be followed, from an accreditation, an outside review an organization opts in to for legitimacy, and from a standard, the bar that has to be met

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

5.1 Summarize elements of effective security governance.

ISC2 CISSP

1.4 Understand legal, regulatory, and compliance issues that pertain to information security in a holistic context

Key terms

Regulation: A legally binding rule or requirement issued by a governing authority that organizations must follow.
Accreditation: A voluntary process through which an organization demonstrates it meets a defined set of standards, lending legitimacy to its operations.
Compliance: The act of adhering to the laws, regulations, standards, and internal policies that govern how an organization handles data and security. Compliance programs use audits and controls to demonstrate that requirements are being met.
ISO 27000: A family of international standards published by the International Organization for Standardization that defines requirements and best practices for IT and cybersecurity.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard: A set of security requirements mandated by major credit card brands that organizations must follow to process, store, or transmit cardholder data. PCI DSS covers controls such as encryption, access restriction, and regular security testing.

Topics

Compliance Regulation Accreditation Standards Interactive Categorize

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