Security certifications are very important for the vendors and technology firms. However, many organizations choose SOC 2 certification for demonstrating the most effective risk management practices as well as for meeting the regulatory requirements. Well, holding a SOC 2 certificate shows that your organization is taking the security seriously and it is taking the security seriously even more than ever. And, do you know most of the deals often depend on it.
Hence, it is critical for your organization to gain a SOC 2 certificate and if it already has a SOC 2 certificate then it’s necessary that you renew and maintain the SOC 2 certification every year. However, if you got your SOC 2 certificate with Strikegrpah and want to renew it at a lesser cost, contact us as we will renew and maintain your SOC 2 certificate at 50% lesser costs at Socly.io.
What is involved in a SOC 2 audit?
With SOC 2 reports, you will be focusing on the non-financial reporting controls which are based on five Trust Service Principles:
- Common Criteria,
- Availability,
- Processing Integrity,
- Confidentiality, and
- Privacy.
However, you can choose to report on any of these 5 Trust Service Principles of SOC 2 but you are required to always include the Common Criteria.
Do you know, the pathway to SOC reports Type I or Type II will take the significant preparation. For instance, the Type I SOC report is a “point in time” report on your systems and processes etc.
On the other hand, SOC Type II looks at least 6 months of evidence and we generally call it as the ‘lookback period’ and it is much more comprehensive. That means, SOC Type II provides more assurance because in SOC 2 the auditor will be testing the operating effectiveness of the controls.
However, being SOC 2 certified is just the start of your long term commitment to the security and compliance. And, the organizations need to renew their SOC 2 certification in every 12 months. If you completed your first SOC audit with a manual process then you have probably used hundreds of spreadsheets and documents for keeping the track of all your policies and evidences.
But, do you know there’s an easier way to keep the track of evidences and for helping your organization in the future. So, no matter whether you are starting a SOC 2 certification preparation for the first time or you’re going to renew your certification then taking help of an automated process as of Socly.io can save your organization’s time and money.
Collection of Evidence
When it comes to SOC 2 then if you didn’t document it means it didn’t happen. Some examples of the evidences include:
- Organizational charts,
- Asset inventories,
- Evidence of on-boarding processes,
- Evidence of off-boarding processes, and
- Change management.
When reviewing the evidences, your auditor may in some cases choose to conduct the on-site interviews or they may also handle interviews remotely sometimes. The report can take between 6 to 8 weeks for the small companies, or even more months for larger companies and it all depends on the scope of the report.
Why SOC 2 Renewal and Maintenance is Required?
SOC 2 renewal and maintenance is required because your service offering is not static and similarly the risks and threats landscape around it are also not static. Hence, with the evolution of your business, it is necessary that you keep on hardening and fine tuning your security controls over time so that it can deal with these increased security threats.
And as your business grows, your assertions around your controls change and also there will be a need for auditing and issuing a new SOC2 compliance report for reassuring your customers accordingly. However, once you have SOC2 compliance, you need to be prepared for the continuous compliance for a longer period of time.
Well, the good news is that you would have no need to spend the same amount of money and resources or time that you did earlier at the time of attaining your initial SOC 2 Report. However, the subsequent SOC 2 audit reports will be based on “how much your controls changes”.
If there is no or little change in your controls then simply a bridge letter issued by your organization which says that the controls didn’t change during that period may be sufficient for your customers.
However, if there are significant material changes in your control, then in that case you must go through the SOC2 journey again. But nothing to worry about as this time it will be much shorter and smoother, if planned properly.
Well, whatever may be the case you shouldn’t have a gap in your SOC2 Compliance because having a gap in SOC 2 Compliance may bring your business to a situation where you will be required to spend more budget, more time, and more resources to “renew” your SOC2 certificate.
Hence, you should remember that your clients will ask for a regular and continuous reporting on your controls year over year and without a break especially in the period being covered. In fact, you may lose your prestigious clients, if you fail to reassure them with a regular SOC2 report.
Get Frictionless SOC 2 Renewal with Socly.io
At Socly.io, we provide a cost-effective solution for a frictionless SOC 2 renewal in which you get ready for the renewal and in the process you will get the following –
- Develop and manage a continuous compliance program,
- Automation and monitoring of the security controls of business,
- Update management assertions,
- Prepare for SOC2 certification.
Benefits –
- You will be ready for the renewal audits with the minimal efforts,
- You management assertions would be in line with the customers’ expectations, and
- You would have all your security data that will be deposited in one place for the future analysis and the future improvements.