GLBA Compliance in SharePoint: Protecting Financial Customer Information

As organizations continue to digitize their operations and store sensitive financial customer information in SharePoint, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations is crucial. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) is a federal law that requires financial institutions to protect customers’ nonpublic personal and proprietary information.

To meet GLBA compliance requirements in SharePoint, organizations must implement robust security measures to safeguard customer data. Here are some key features to use within SharePoint to achieve this:

1. Information Rights Management (IRM): This feature allows you to apply permissions to specific documents or folders based on user roles, ensuring that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized personnel.
2. Auditing and Logging: Configure SharePoint’s auditing and logging features to track changes to sensitive documents, allowing you to monitor and detect potential security breaches in real-time.
3. Encryption: Use SharePoint’s encryption feature to protect sensitive data at rest and in transit. This ensures that even if unauthorized individuals gain access to the information, they will not be able to read or modify it without the decryption key.
4. Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Implement DLP policies to detect and prevent sensitive information from being shared outside of authorized channels. SharePoint’s DLP feature can identify and block attempts to share sensitive data through email, instant messaging, or other collaboration tools.
5. Access Control: Configure access control lists (ACLs) to restrict access to sensitive documents based on user roles, department, or job function. This ensures that only authorized personnel can view, modify, or delete sensitive information.
6. Version History: Use SharePoint’s version history feature to track changes made to sensitive documents and maintain a record of all modifications. This helps you identify and investigate potential security incidents.
7. Third-Party Control: Implement controls over third-party access to sensitive data by configuring permissions and auditing settings for external collaborators or vendors.
8. Secure Sharing: Use SharePoint’s secure sharing features, such as Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) and Office 365 Message Encryption, to ensure that sensitive information is protected when shared outside of the organization.

By implementing these features within SharePoint, financial institutions can effectively safeguard customer information and demonstrate compliance with GLBA regulations.