Global companies face a significant cultural and legal challenge when dealing with security across international borders. Just as the European Union privacy regulation conflicts with United States laws, other regulations conflict between countries. It was once said that business is like a car traveling on a road to the business goals. The board of directors or senior management is the driver of the car. Management sets the speed, distance, and timing of when they reach their goals. How does information technology fit within that metaphor? Information technology would be the tires on the car that allow the management to drive on the road to those goals. Information technology must keep good tread on those tires, maintain appropriate air pressure for the road conditions, and reduce potential tire failures from both internal and external conditions.

Regulatory compliance and data security is a very big issue when dealing with information technology, that local, national, and international companies face daily. This includes every type of business (public and private), non-profit, and governments. Security incidents can be initiated by internal or external forces from anywhere in the world, a global concern. Global issues face both national and international businesses. Global economy boundaries have been muted in the past few years with the advent of the internet. Each country has created laws or regulatory requirements for the different industries. Treaties have been established between countries, under international law, to provide an agreement on particular subjects. When a company is global, this is compounded by each country their presence is located. Prosecution of data theft in the digital age is becoming prevalent.

When looking at legal and regulatory requirements, they have common thread to address issues stemming from fraud, theft, and malfeasance, from both internal and external threat actors, of a particular data set of information. These threat actors could be located anywhere in the world. Increasing data-breach reports have shown the gaps and holes in the security posture of a company. Criminal organizations are using these security shortfalls to gain sensitive information for profit. Senior management is being held responsible for the security of the data that is within their organization.

Recently, social scientists have studied the problem of compliance in international regulatory issues and international law. The empirical research1 has showed some key findings:

     
  • Compliance is generally adhered to.
  • The high level of compliance has been achieved with little attention to enforcement.
  • For those compliance problems that do exist are best addressed as management rather than enforcement problems.
  • Management rather than enforcement approach holds the key to the evolution of future regulatory cooperation in the international system.
     

To maintain a competitive edge, business has turned to information technologies to help management achieve their business goals. Computer systems are so entwined with the business process, the business could fail if the systems are compromised. This heavy reliance on information systems has forced companies to re-think about the little boxes that provide so much information to the company.  READ MORE!