What are compliance benchmarks and why do they matter?

The threat landscape is constantly changing, and new threats are being engineered every day. It's impossible to mitigate every possible risk. So how do you know if your IT compliance standards are enough?

IT compliance benchmarks are a great place to start. No system is flawless, but compliance benchmarks help organizations develop their security strategies and policies.

What are IT compliance benchmarks?

Compliance benchmarks are frameworks with standardized checklists of security standards. They help IT and Security teams meet IT compliance regulation requirements and keep their devices secure. Benchmarks differ from compliance standards, frameworks and baselines because they measure whether specific configurations meet the defined requirements, acting as a validation layer. While standards and frameworks guide what to do and baselines define how to do it, benchmarks confirm whether it’s been done correctly.

Depending on your industry and the regions you operate in, your organization can be subject to different standards and regulations. For example:

• HIPAA: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act if you deal with healthcare data in the U.S.

• GDPR: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if you handle personal data of users in the EU

• PCI DSS: the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard if you transmit, process or store credit or debit card information

• SOX: the Sarbanes–Oxley Act for applicable financial institutions

But what about general guidance?

Compliance benchmarks help organizations stay secure.

CIS benchmarks

Many organizations rely on standards like the Center for Internet Security's (CIS) benchmarks to help them adhere to regulations or develop their own strategy based on their risk tolerance. CIS, a non-profit focused on enhancing cybersecurity readiness and response, collaborates with the cybersecurity community to develop these benchmarks.

Tailored to each operating system, CIS benchmarks focus on technical configuration settings to secure systems. They are intended to be used in addition to other security best practices, like telemetry collection and endpoint protection. CIS benchmarks include two levels, Level 1 and Level 2, based on the stringency of your requirements, and cover topics like software updates, configurations, services, accounts and more.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers a "taxonomy of high-level security outcomes" for organizations to improve their security. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is intended for organizations of all sizes and needs, offering flexible and broad guidance.

The core of the framework is based on these functions: govern, identify, protect, detect, respond and recover. Organizations can then use included profiles and tiers to decide how to tailor these functions to their organization — check out their documentation for more information.

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27001 is an information security standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This standard provides a framework for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an organization's information security management system.

It is part of the broader ISO/IEC 27000 series, which includes complementary standards such as ISO/IEC 27002, offering detailed guidance on security controls, ISO/IEC 27005, which focuses on risk management practices and ISO/IEC 27017 and 27018, which address cloud security and data privacy in cloud environments.

The macOS Security Compliance Project

The macOS Security Compliance Project (mSCP) is an open-source collaboration with multiple U.S. government agencies that aims to "provide a programmatic approach to generating security guidance." It helps organizations create customized security baselines of technical security controls and is intended for use with management and security tools.

IT compliance should be proactive, not reactive.

Compliance is a moving target; these frameworks and benchmarks can help organizations prepare for a volatile threat landscape. They are not single solutions, nor are they one size fits all, but they do provide valuable guidance.

Jamf helps keep your devices in compliance by monitoring your fleet and remediating noncompliant devices. With Jamf Pro, it's simple to enforce compliance benchmarks. Built on the mSCP framework, its Compliance Benchmarks feature keep devices in line with industry standards like CIS benchmarks.

This feature can monitor only or monitor and enforce compliance status, depending on your organization's needs. This automatic compliance tool acts proactively, improving risk management, streamlining compliance processes and enhancing security governance by:

• Ensuring macOS security and compliance

• Streamlining compliance audits

• Mitigating security risks

• Simplifying ongoing compliance management

Compliance Benchmarks in Jamf Pro provides real-time visibility on your fleet's compliance status so you can stay on top of potential threats and vulnerabilities — and stay in line with industry standards.