Lazarus Alliance Helps Companies Prepare for GDPR With Free Readiness Assessment and Report

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., December 18, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Lazarus Alliance, a leading cybersecurity, governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) firm, has launched a free online readiness assessment tool to help organizations prepare for the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law, the company announced today.

The GDPR gives European consumers a number of new data privacy rights and places new data governance responsibilities on organizations. Among other requirements, organizations must:

Lazarus Alliance is offering this free tool so that companies can determine where they stand with GDPR right now and how much work they still need to do.

Michael Peters, CEO, Lazarus Alliance

• Obtain EU citizens’ consent to use and store their data and clearly explain how the data will be used.
• Notify both the authorities and affected customers within 72 hours of detecting a breach.
• Bake data security into their products, policies, procedures, and systems from day one.
• Conduct impact assessments to identify risks to EU citizens’ data and specify how they are addressing those risks.

All organizations that handle the data of EU citizens must comply, even if the company has no locations in the EU. The deadline for compliance is May 25, 2018.

“The GDPR is expected to set new standards for consumer data protection and privacy, and it will require many organizations to completely alter their data governance policies, procedures, and security controls,” said Michael Peters, CEO of Lazarus Alliance. “Lazarus Alliance is offering this free tool so that companies can determine where they stand with GDPR right now and how much work they still need to do.”

After users answer a series of simple questions, the tool produces a downloadable report that senior management and directors can use to proactively assess their organizations’ current level of compliance with GDPR regulations and identify potential problem areas.

The online assessment tool is powered by Continuum GRC’s IT Audit Machine (ITAM), a complete GRC automation solution and the number-one ranked GDPR audit software platform. ITAM simplifies the compliance process with user-friendly self-help modules encompassing the full spectrum of regulatory and industry data security requirements. It also helps users ensure security and compliance moving forward by giving them a centralized repository of all IT compliance requirements, with associated controls and automated information flow for audits, assessments, and testing.

Peters pointed out that it’s important that companies not wait until the last minute to get ready for GDPR.

“If a company already has proactive cyber security controls and solid data governance procedures in place, and especially if they’re already complying with standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, or FedRAMP, they’ve got a good head start,” Peters explained. “But the GDPR is also introducing a lot of requirements that no other legislation has ever addressed.”

Source: Lazarus Alliance