Security Vs. Compliance: Understanding the Difference
Security and compliance. With data privacy in the headlines and cyberattacks on the rise, these two simple words have become hot topics across just about every industry. But as conversations about security and compliance continue, it has become clear that not everyone understands the distinction between the two. And while it’s true that there are some similarities between them, knowing the difference is important for companies seeking to better protect themselves, their employees and their customers. Simply put, compliant doesn’t necessarily mean secure—and secure doesn’t necessarily mean compliant. Plenty of companies are compliant with government or industry standards, yet still suffer data breaches. On the other hand, plenty of companies that have never suffered a breach may still find that their inability to adhere to compliance standards makes potential partners or customers leery. The truth is that while security and compliance overlap in significant ways, they have fundamentally different goals. Security is about protecting data, while compliance is about establishing trust.
How Security and Compliance Work Together
First, it’s important to understand what “compliance” means. There tends to be some confusion here because the term can be fairly broad. Yes, compliance refers to remaining compliant with government standards. In the privacy world, that often refers to data security regulations like the EU’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) or the California consumer privacy act (CCPA). It might also refer to more industry-specific regulations like the more well-known health insurance portability and accountability act (HIPAA) in healthcare.
But it’s also important to remember that compliance refers to more than just government standards and regulations. It can also refer to frameworks like SOC 2, a common gauge for how well companies are protecting data stored in the cloud. SOC 2 is not “enforceable” in the traditional sense—there are no fines or official penalties for not having SOC 2 compliance—but it has become such a widely accepted standard that the penalty is more likely to come in the form of lost business.
Because these compliance frameworks seek to measure how well companies are protecting certain types of data, there is an obvious overlap with security. After all, a company that prioritizes cybersecurity will probably have an easier time adhering to security standards than one that doesn’t. But it isn’t as simple as installing the latest security tools and calling it a day—frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 will want to measure how well those tools work together, and how effective they are over time. This is where security and compliance work hand in hand. In both cases, better data protection is the goal—but the focus of security is on keeping data safe, while the focus of compliance is on proving that safety to others, and not just once, but consistently over time.
The Trust Factor
There’s a reason the word “standard” is used—compliance standards create a uniform measuring stick against which companies can be assessed. For standards like SOC 2 or ISO 27001, companies bring in an outside auditor to gauge the effectiveness of their security tools against the same benchmarks as every other company. Without this common frame of reference, it would be more difficult for companies to demonstrate that certain security requirements are being met. Even companies that establish their own security standards for vendors need to be able to independently verify that those standards are met. Fortunately, most of those requirements tend to fall within SOC 2 or ISO 27001, which means demonstrating compliance with those standards remains extremely important.
Security requirements for various frameworks, standards and regulations streamline this process by establishing acceptable levels of data protection. Meeting these requirements signifies that a company understands the major threats and challenges that they face and has taken appropriate steps to mitigate them. The ability to produce a certification or attestation allows companies to prove that they have the necessary tools, capabilities, and expertise in place to combat the most common threats of the day. Should responsible companies go above and beyond those standards? Certainly. The modern threat landscape is broad, and compliance standards cannot cover every possible eventuality. If companies see an opportunity to improve their security and they have the knowledge and resources to do so, they absolutely should. Continuously improving security is an important goal in its own right.
But compliance is about more than just security—it’s about establishing trust. If a potential partner or customer sees that a company has been fined for repeated GDPR violations, that trust is damaged. If a company cannot produce a clean SOC 2 attestation report upon request, the problem grows. Being able to quickly and easily provide the necessary reports and certifications to demonstrate that all relevant compliance standards have been adhered to is the fastest way to show those partners and customers that you can be trusted to take care of their data. In today’s world of increasingly common and costly data breaches, it’s hard to overstate how valuable it is to be able to quickly establish that degree of trust.
Adhering to compliance standards doesn’t guarantee that a company will be immune from cyberattacks, because the truth is that no company—no matter how strong their security—can prevent every attack. But compliance frameworks provide a tangible way for potential partners and customers to gauge how seriously a company is taking the threat and how well they are mitigating it. In today’s increasingly digital world, this is an essential part of establishing a baseline degree of trust upon which a stronger relationship can be built.
