Quick Intelligence Blog

Privacy and security go hand in hand. Cyber security focuses on protecting the information from unauthorized access, while privacy focuses more on protecting the contents of the information and ensuring it isn’t accessed or shared inappropriately. Both businesses and individuals have an expectation of privacy when they trust another business with their data.

PCI compliance, or Payment Card Industry compliance, is a set of standards created to ensure that when business take credit card payments online, they do it in a secure manner, minimizing the risk of credit card theft. The PCI Council creates the rules (there are ~150 of them) which dictate everything from firewall configuration to security protection on devices used to store, process, or transmit credit card data.

Canada’s data privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, governs how private Canadian companies are responsible for the collection, use and disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII) during the course of their regular business activities. PIPEDA fist came into law in 2000 and must be reviewed by parliament every 5 years. The last update to PIPEDA came into law on November 1, 2018, and for the first time, it included regulations for disclosing a cyber security breach.

Has this happened to you before? Your business is about to land a big client. Everything is going well, but before they sign the deal, they want you to sign off on a Cyber Security Questionnaire. Not only that, but they have also asked you for a SOC Audit, and you don’t even know what it is.

Most business owners know they need to be protected from outside threats, but did you know you’re your employees could also be a threat? So how are your employees a risk? Is there anything you can do to mitigate that risk?

Many business owners, especially of SMBs, take to the wearing of many hats to grow a successful business. They feel they need to do it all themselves. But is this true about cyber security? Can you do it all on your own? Should you do it all on your own?