System and Organization Controls (SOC)
What is SOC 2®?
Business leaders choose to improve efficiency, enhance operations, or transfer risk by outsourcing functions to service organisations. These service providers collect, transmit, store, and dispose of information. Both your customer’s information and your organisation’s information could be at risk. Potentially service organisations could be missing governance which poses a risk to customers, investors, and organisations.
The System and Organisation Controls (SOC) is a set of standards designed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) to create a level of confidence and trust for organisations when they engage a third-party to provide important services.
- SOC 1® is an audit report describing controls related to the protection of financial statements and reports.
- SOC 2® is an audit report related to controls on security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. SOC 2® reports come in Type 1 and Type 2. A Type 1 report is restricted to an assessment of how the security controls are designed, and a Type 2 report includes the operating effectiveness of the security controls.
- SOC 3® is a higher-level compliance report which can be provided to any of the given organisation’s customers as it does not contain sensitive information, however, it must demonstrate both design and operation effectiveness; essentially this is a Type 2 report.
What is SOC 2® and why is it important?
SOC 2® compliance is important for protecting the given organisation and its customers from data breaches, threats and vulnerabilities. Enterprise customers will also require service providers to meet the Trust Services Criteria (TSC) and the compliance requirements prior to engaging in contracts. Moreover, SOC 2® compliance is a competitive differentiator, it enables the service provider to boost establishment, credibility and remain attuned to customer needs.
SOC 2® reporting solves the issue of how a business leader can trust that a service provider is taking its obligations seriously by conducting a SOC 2® Type 1 and Type 2 report to evaluate data protection systems and procedures. The AICPA created SOC 2® to fill the need for rigorous independent examinations of the operational controls in service organisations.
Further to this, SOC 2® bolsters company culture, provides documentation to meet legal and compliance challenges, assists with risk management and improves overall security.
Who is SOC 2® for?
If you are a service provider or a service organisation that stores, processes or transmits any kind of information you may need to involve a SOC 2® consultancy and audit team. Service providers that have a SOC 2® Type 1 and Type 2 report ready to give to an organisation, will ultimately have a commercial advantage over their competitors.
On the contrary, the SOC 2® Type 1 and Type 2 reports are an invaluable resource for user organisations to confirm the effectiveness of their service provider’s internal controls and to ensure their clients sensitive data is protected.
For security-conscious businesses, SOC 2® compliance is a minimum requirement when considering a SaaS provider.
SOC 2® engagement with us
Sekuro’s SOC 2® services ensure you save time, reduce cost and receive exceptional results.
Our SOC 2® services are end-to-end, offering a lifecycle of SOC 2® Type 1 pre work, gap assessment, remediation services, the controls matrix and mapping exercises, service description and optimal consulting services.
Further to the lifecycle approach, the Sekuro audit team will take over and drive the SOC 2® Type 2 test designs, the team will ensure that the controls are operating effectively prior to providing the required deliverables. Both the consulting and auditing teams at Sekuro have exceptional skills in ensuring your organisation guidance and direction throughout the SOC 2® process.