Just six months after achieving ISO 27001 certification, a mid-sized financial services firm faced a harsh reality. Their surveillance audit uncovered 12 major non-conformities, putting both their hard-earned certification and client trust in serious jeopardy. The culprit? Gaps in compliance maintenance and a false sense of security post-certification. The firm saw compliance as a one-time milestone, not an ongoing journey.
This scenario plays across industries. While organizations invest heavily in achieving initial certification, they plan to do nothing until the next audit or an external party uncovers issues in compliance maintenance.
Organizations undergoing the complex journey of complying with cybersecurity standards have to follow a comprehensive approach, encompassing several key elements. These elements include scoping, gap assessment, policy development, implementation of security controls, and compliance maintenance. While the first four elements are achievable by hiring a certified security professional who would guide them through the planning and execution phases, the actual challenge arises when it comes to ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Often, organizations overlook this phase once they achieve the certification and eventually find themselves in the soup during follow-up surveillance audits or assessments.
While some organizations fail to adhere due to the lack of awareness about the importance of the phase, others fall short because they fail to
Furthermore, a recent survey by PwC reported that 85% of organizations admitted that compliance requirements have grown increasingly complex over the last three years. Understanding these requirements adds to the challenges of compliance maintenance.
Eventually, this leads to lapses, non-conformities, or even loss of cybersecurity certification during follow-up audits or surveillance assessments.
Organizations handling large volumes of sensitive customer data, particularly in healthcare and financial services, face significant challenges in maintaining compliance. Regulated industries where compliance is closely linked to business operations and customer trust also struggle with the ongoing demands of cybersecurity compliance maintenance.
This challenge becomes even more evident when looking at industry-specific standards that require ongoing validation of compliance.
For instance, an organization obtaining ISO 27001 certification has to undergo surveillance audits annually during the three-year certification cycle to ensure that its Information Security Management System (ISMS) remains effective and compliant with the standard. This also ensures that the organization is equipped enough to address new risks and vulnerabilities. However, if the organization does not maintain the requirements of the standard or compliance, it can result in non-conformities being identified during the surveillance audit, putting its certification status and overall security posture at risk.
Similarly, PCI DSS Requirement 11.3.2 mandates quarterly ASV scans across the card data environment. However, if an organization neglects to perform these reviews, it can create significant gaps in compliance, leading to failed assessments or even exposure to data breaches due to missed vulnerabilities.
In the case of SOC 2 Type 2, the audit period can vary from 3-12 months, depending on the size and operational business of organizations. Therefore, organizations complying with SOC 2 Type 2 have to undergo the audit process as per the discussed timeline to assess their overall security posture. This is possible if organizations adhere to compliance maintenance through continuous evidence collection, regular control testing, and documentation updates.
In essence, compliance maintenance is not just about staying audit-ready. It’s about embedding cybersecurity into everyday operations to ensure long-term resilience, trust, and regulatory alignment.
Compliance maintenance in the context of cybersecurity is the ongoing process of monitoring, managing, and updating security controls, policies, and procedures to ensure continuous adherence to regulatory standards and frameworks after initial certification or compliance is achieved.
Compliance maintenance requires a structured and ongoing effort to ensure that all key aspects remain effective and aligned with certification standards. They include:
Maintaining cybersecurity compliance offers numerous benefits. While ongoing compliance efforts help organizations stay prepared for upcoming surveillance audits or assessments, they also prevent last-minute chaos of gathering resources, checking implemented security controls and meeting other compliance requirements.
Additionally, organizations increase their chances of completing the recertification or re-assessment process smoothly by keeping necessary resources, infrastructure, policies and procedures up to date and available. This helps them avoid missing recertification deadlines and facing potential penalties.
Maintaining compliance also improves operational resilience, mitigates reputational damage, and enhances risk management.
Beyond these benefits, the practice of continuous compliance also strengthens the overall security posture of an organization.
The glaring challenges arising from compliance maintenance in cybersecurity can leave organizations in a vulnerable state of non-conformity, risking their reputation, exposing them to regulatory penalties, and even leading to the potential loss of hard-earned certifications.
Ampcus Cyber, a trusted and leading cybersecurity compliance service provider, helps organizations overcome these challenges through dedicated support for compliance maintenance. As an agnostic compliance provider, Ampcus Cyber adapts to an organization’s unique needs, size, and operational environment to provide both pre- and post-certification support, enabling a sustainable security posture. With a wide range of certified professionals and consultants who bring over 50 years of deep expertise and knowledge in various GRC frameworks, such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC, and NIST, Ampcus Cyber ensures the organization remains aligned with evolving standards, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.
As part of the compliance execution and maintenance processes, Ampcus Cyber follows the unique T-SAMA (Train, Scope, Assess, Mitigate, and Audit) approach to align people, processes, and procedures with regulatory requirements and organizational security goals. This not only streamlines resource allocation but also ensures clear ownership of compliance responsibilities across the organization. The in-house experienced security professionals offer expert guidance tailored to business goals and operations, helping organizations navigate complex privacy and industry-specific compliance requirements. By maintaining a strong focus on sector-specific standards and helping embed compliance into day-to-day operations, Ampcus Cyber ensures that organizations sustain long-term security posture and regulatory readiness.
As part of compliance maintenance, Ampcus Cyber’s expert team connects with the organization periodically and ensures that controls and changes in the infrastructure environment post-certification are maintained. Additionally, other comprehensive support services include:
With a success rate of 95%, Ampcus Cyber’s post-certification compliance maintenance approach ensures that organizations not only achieve compliance but also sustain it in the face of evolving regulatory demands.
Enjoyed reading this blog? Stay updated with our latest exclusive content by following us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
This website uses the following additional cookies:
(List the cookies that you are using on the website here.)
More information about our Cookie Policy
