It is dependable, secure, and reliable. Companies work hard to uphold and deliver each of these promises to customers. How can you ensure that the data of your clients will be kept secure if your business or a third party you work with is in charge of managing and storing that data?
To verify that organizational controls and policies properly safeguard the privacy and security of client and customer data, SOC 2 is a framework that is applicable to any technology service or SaaS organization that keeps customer data in the cloud.
SOC 2 Compliance: What is it?
The Service Organization Control reporting platform from the American Institute of CPAs includes SOC 2 compliance. Its goal is to guarantee the security and privacy of the data about your consumers.
It provides a foundation for data protection by outlining five trust service principles like safety, reliability, processing integrity, secrecy, and protection of client data.
SOC 2 does not contain an exhaustive list of procedures, tools, or controls. Instead, it lists the requirements for maintaining strong information security, letting every firm select the procedures and practices that are pertinent to their particular goals and operations.
Below is a list of 5 trust services requirements:
Protection
Security is the prevention of unauthorized access and systems. This could be done by using firewalls, factor authorization, and other IT security systems to protect your data from illegal access.
Accessibility
If the hardware, software, or data is kept up to date and has controls for use, monitoring, and maintenance, it is said to be available. This criterion also evaluates how well your business evaluates and mitigates potential external risks while maintaining minimally acceptable network performance levels.
Processing integrity
Processing integrity guarantees that systems carry out their intended functions without delay, mistake, omission, or unauthorized or unintentional alteration. This indicates that data processing processes are allowed, thorough, accurate, and function as they should.
Confidentiality
The ability of the business to safeguard the information that should only be shared with a particular group of people or organizations is covered by secrecy. This includes client information that should only be shared with firm employees.
Proprietary information must be kept confidential, such as business plans or intellectual property, or any other information that must be safeguarded by law, rules, contracts, or agreements.
Security
The ability of a company to protect personally identifiable information from unwanted access is measured by security criteria. Typically, this data comes in the form of the name, social security, or address details, as well as other identifiers like race, ethnicity, or health details.
Who Is Eligible to SOC 2?
Any technological service provider or SaaS business that manages or keeps client data is subject to SOC 2. To guarantee the integrity of their data systems and safeguards, the companies those businesses operate with should also maintain SOC 2 compliance with third-party vendors, other partners, or support organizations.
What advantages come from SOC 2 Compliance?
An independent technical audit is used to determine SOC 2 compliance. According to their goals, it requires that businesses create and follow certain information security policies and procedures.
To make sure that a company’s information security measures are in accordance with the changing needs of data protection in the cloud, SOC 2 compliance might include a 6 to12-month term.
Becoming SOC 2 compliance gives your consumers and clients the assurance that you have systems, resources, and procedures in place to safeguard their data from illegal access from both inside and outside the company.
- Your business is aware of what typical operations entail, and you routinely check for suspicious or unknown activity, record system configuration changes, and keep an eye on user access privileges.
- You have the required tools in place to identify threats, notify the appropriate parties, and take action to protect data and systems from unauthorized access or use.
- You will be equipped with the required information about any security incidents so that you can assess the severity of the issue, make the necessary system or process corrections, and restore the integrity of data and processes.
How important is SOC 2 Compliance?
An organization that complies with SOC 2 guidelines maintains a high level of data protection. Strict compliance standards (validated by on-site audits) can help guarantee that sensitive data is handled properly.
- Improved information safety procedures: thanks to SOC 2 standards, the company is better able to protect itself against cyber-attacks and stop breaches.
- Significant benefit: especially for IT and cloud services, customers prefer to collaborate with service providers who can demonstrate they have strong information security policies.
Questions about SOC 2 compliance
Write the difference between the SOC 2 Type 1 audit and a SOC 2 Type 2 audit?
The Type 1 audit often just needs a few examples to show that the controls are in place and simply evaluates whether the right controls are in place at a certain moment in time.
Additionally, the Type 1 audit determines whether you have sufficient controls in place to meet each Trusted Services Criteria (i.e., Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and/or Privacy) you’re pursuing. the auditor Moreover, It does not provide a thorough explanation of the tests conducted on your controls or their operational efficacy in a Type 1 audit.
what do you know about operational effectiveness?
To do this, evaluate your controls over a period of time, let’s say six months. An auditor should be able to examine a sample of six months’ worth of vulnerability testing as proof to judge the efficiency of your controls, for instance, if a control specifies that you perform vulnerability scans every month.
The consequences
All enterprises, especially those that outsource critical business operations to third-party contractors, should be concerned about information security (e.g., SaaS, cloud-computing providers). This is understandable given that improper data handling, particularly by application and network security providers, can expose businesses to threats including malware installation, extortion, and data theft.
SOC 2 is a technique for evaluating service providers to verify that they safely manage your data for the sake of your organization’s interests and the privacy of its customers. SOC 2 certification is a prerequisite for security-conscious enterprises when looking for a SaaS provider.
