To be in compliance with POPIA, any entity that accesses, controls, or processes personal information must take sufficient measures to keep that data secure and private. This is very similar to GDPR legislation for EU citizens.
To achieve the required level of data protection required by POPIA, organisations must:
1. Constantly assess their systems for vulnerabilities
2. Prioritize vulnerabilities according to risk level
3. Patch and contain vulnerabilities quickly and effectively
4. Document all actions taken to remediate the vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately for most organisations, the information needed to engage in risk-based prioritisation is located in numerous places across their IT, data protection, and compliance departments. This makes the whole process extremely difficult, especially when conducted without a purpose-built tool.
Utilizing a Vulnerability Management (VM) solution is the most efficient way to achieve the required level of protection. It can help you identify, evaluate, prioritize, report, patch and remediate security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in your digital assets. These assets can include business processes, web apps, data network systems and any associated software.
Unfortunately, there are great deal of organisations that handle personal data are not currently scanning for vulnerabilities, leaving access to their vital systems unchecked and vulnerabilities unnoticed. And if they are aware of any security issues, they do not have a proper system to address them in a prioritised manner. Scanning for vulnerabilities is a simple and efficient way to significantly increase the odds of avoiding a breach. It can effectively reduce 20% of yan organisation’s risk right off the top, before getting started with patching or other security measures.
Once an organisation has mapped out its vulnerabilities, they must be patched in a timely and prioritized fashion. This can be a daunting task, due to the long list of vulnerabilities assessed by most organisations. Overall, though, detecting and patching vulnerabilities have been shown to be key success factors among organizations that avoid breaches, time and time again.
F-Secure Elements Vulnerability Management can help organisations meet POPIA compliance requirements as it is purpose-made to deliver Vulnerability Management on a continuous, process-based delivery methodology. It measures and quantifies risk to systems that contain, process, or transfer personal data, so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken without undue delay. Given the fundamental nature of Vulnerability Management in IT security, it should be considered as one of the ‘minimum’ technical components to reach an appropriate level of security.
Vulnerability Assessment reports provided by F-Secure Elements Vulnerability Management can be delivered to Information Officers (IO) in conjunction with other documents, for the IO to provide correct advice during data protection impact assessment. The reports will give the IO (among other things):
- A better understanding of the effectiveness of technical and organisational measures taken to ensure security.
- Documentation and rationale to effectively evaluate current risk in systems with personal data
- Historical status and changes in the confidentiality, integrity, and resilience of the systems
- Documentation on the corrective actions implemented.
- The ability to show that a process for regularly testing, assessing, and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organizational measures is in place.
- The ability to show that appropriate technical and organisational security measures have been taken to protect the system, for example against vulnerabilities, configuration errors, and expired certificates.
- The ability to show the status of the action plan to remediate or mitigate the risks, and documentation on the previous corrective actions implemented.
In case the supervisory authority investigates due to a data breach or suspected non-compliance, reports provided by F-Secure Elements Vulnerability Management enable an Information Officer (IO) to contribute documentation on:
- The ability to measure and quantify risk to systems that contain, process, or transfer personal data, so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken without undue delay.
- The ability to show that a process for regularly testing, assessing, and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organizational measures is in place.
- The ability to show that appropriate technical and organisational security measures have been taken to protect the system, for example against vulnerabilities, configuration errors, and expired certificates.
- The ability to show the status of the action plan to remediate or mitigate the risks, and documentation on the previous corrective actions implemented. It also provides detailed logs for future investigations.
Find out more about F-Secure F-Secure Elements Vulnerability Management