Financial compliance software solutions can help make it substantially easier for companies to fulfill their regulatory obligations. Many companies operating in the U.S. these days are required to comply with a slew of regulations governing the manner in which customer and financial data is gathered, stored, accessed, used and distributed. Some examples of these kinds of regulations include the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) and the more recent Red Flags Rules issued by the Federal Trade Commission, the National Credit Union Administration and a few other regulatory agencies. In addition to such requirements, all companies that are publicly listed on a U.S. stock exchange are also required to submit to the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) pertaining to the manner in which customer transaction data and communications are stored and accessed.
Regulatory compliance software tools can help companies achieve and maintain compliance with such requirements by automating many compliance-related tasks. For instance, several products are available from companies such as LogRythm, SecureWorks and Fortinet to help companies attain compliance with GLBA requirements. The products enable companies to perform risk assessments and to identify security controls that need to be implemented. GLBA compliance products also support functions that enable better auditing and monitoring of corporate IT security environments. Many of the regulatory compliance solutions, in this space help companies gather and analyze detailed log information from their servers, networks, storage, and security systems to ensure that financial information is properly secured and stored.
Similar software products are available for SOX compliance requirements as well. Companies such as Intuit, ArcSight, OpenPages and Oracle subsidiary LogicalApps all offer regulatory compliance solutions for SOX requirements. These products too offer companies a way to conduct risk assessments and to mitigate threats that could put a company out of compliance with SOX. In addition, many of the products in this category allow companies to monitor and archive communications with clients for up to six years, as required by SOX. The software tools allow companies to scan and record email, chat and other communications channels and to quickly identify any communications involving sensitive financial data. In addition, SOX compliance monitoring tools can also be used to monitor for unusual activity or sudden changes in a customer’s accounts. The tools can be set to alert administrators when any activity that appears to be suspicious is noticed.
In addition to offering granular support for specific regulatory requirements, many financial compliance products also help companies stay on top of any changes or additions to existing regulations. Most vendors offer templates that allow companies to map financial regulatory requirements to their specific IT environments and to the industry in which they operate. Such templates can help companies get a quick assessment of any gaps in their security infrastructure that might need to be addressed in order to achieve or to remain in compliance.