What is Secure Controls Framework (SCF)?
The Secure Controls Framework is a comprehensive list of controls created to empower businesses in the designing, building and maintenance stages of creating safe and secure processes, applications and systems. It covers both privacy and cybersecurity principles so that they should be woven into the very foundations of the framework.
The idea of the SCF is to create a meta-framework (a framework of frameworks) capable of dealing with the larger challenges like People, Processes, Technology, and Data (PPTD), that controls in general are supposed to address.
Over 1000 controls are presently included in the CSF framework, which is baselined against over 150 legislation and standards and updated every few months.
What are the requirements for CRR?
The SCF is divided into 32 sections that address high-level concerns that are usually addressed by statutory, regulatory, and contractual cybersecurity and privacy standards. These are the cybersecurity and privacy policies, standards, procedures, and other processes in place to ensure that business objectives are met and that unwanted events are avoided, detected, and addressed to the best of our abilities.
The SCF should be considered as a long-term instrument to guarantee that security and privacy principles are appropriately conceived, implemented, and maintained, not just for compliance purposes. The SCF aids in the implementation of a holistic strategy to protect your data, systems, applications, and other operations’ Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, and Safety (CIAS). The SCF can be used to help with everything from strategic planning to tactical issues that affect your organization’s people, processes, and technologies.
To comprehend the needs for both cybersecurity and privacy standards, a simple technique of condensing expectations is required. This approach is all part of documenting appropriate expectations that are “right-sized” for that firm, because each business has its unique set of criteria.
To find suitable controls, the technique considers the following realms of influence:
- Statutory responsibilities
- Regulatory responsibilities
- Contractual commitments
- “Best practices” recognized by the industry
With over 1,000 options, the SCF may be regarded as a feast of cybersecurity and privacy protections. You can create a custom control set that gives you the controls you need to meet your legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements once you know what is applicable to you.
Why Should You Use The SCF?
The SCF has two significant advantages. The first is its combination of comprehensiveness and brevity. Many firms’ compliance, information security, and cyber security needs are covered by the 32 domains. The Control language, on the other hand, is still comprehensible enough for novices to use – you don’t need decades of experience in any of these domains to develop business processes and technologies that comply with the SCF Controls.
The second advantage that SCF provides is a comprehensive collection of cross-references. The controls are mapped to 100 different security and compliance frameworks. So, the SCF framework is excellent for enterprises with three or more compliance obligations (e.g., organizations that must meet ISO 27002, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and GDPR), as it streamlines the management of cybersecurity and privacy measures.
Does this imply that SCF will make you globally compliant with all 100 frameworks? Not quite, as there may be some geographical differences to consider. Having an uniform set of controls that allows you to check various boxes across multiple industry and country frameworks, on the other hand, gives you a significant advantage.
How to Use The SCF?
The SCF specifically focuses on the need to understand and clarify the difference between “compliant” versus “secure” since that is necessary to have coherent risk management discussions. To assist in this process, an organization’s applicable controls are categorized according to “must have” vs “nice to have” requirements:
- Minimum Compliance Criteria (MCC) are the absolute minimum requirements that must be addressed to comply with applicable laws, regulations and contracts. MCC are primarily externally-influenced, based on industry, government, state and local regulations. MCC should never imply adequacy for secure practices and data protection, since they are merely compliance-related.
- Discretionary Security Requirements (DSR) are tied to the organization’s risk appetite since DSR are “above and beyond” MCC, where the organization self-identifies additional cybersecurity and data protection controls to address voluntary industry practices or internal requirements, such as findings from internal audits or risk assessments. DSR are primarily internally-influenced, based on the organization’s respective industry and risk tolerance. While MCC establish the foundational floor that must be adhered to, DSR are where organizations often achieve improved efficiency, automation, and enhanced security.
The Centraleyes platform contains a built-in SCF questionnaire that allows you to automatically gather your Minimum Compliance Criteria (MCC) and Discretionary Security Requirements (DSR), evaluate them, and detect gaps. The platform will provide automated actionable remediation tasks using its AI risk engine after the holes have been detected, advising the team on what they need to do.
The Centraleyes platform gives businesses total visibility into their cyber risk levels and SCF compliance, which saves time and money while also providing more accurate data.
Read more:
https://www.securecontrolsframework.com/
