FREE Download: SOC 2 Security Controls List and Compliance Checklist

Achieving Systems and Organizations Control 2 (SOC 2) compliance can be challenging. It requires comprehensive monitoring to ensure the company’s information security measures align with today’s constantly evolving cloud requirements. SOC 2 requirements allow for more flexibility in developing unique reports for each organization.

LogicManager offers a complimentary SOC 2 compliance checklist and criteria list to help kickstart this complex and essential process. This comprehensive readiness assessment enables you to prioritize the areas holding your organization back and prevent duplicate work.

Systems and Organizations Control 2 is a framework intended to help software vendors and other entities identify the security controls they’ve implemented to protect cloud-based customer data. These controls comprise the Trust Services Principles, a set of five common criteria:

• Security
• Availability
• Confidentiality
• Privacy
• Processing Integrity

A basic SOC 2 compliance checklist should address these controls as they relate to the Trust Services Principles:

• Logical and physical access controls: How does your company restrict and manage access to prevent unauthorized access to customer data?
• System operations: What steps do you take when managing your system operations to detect and mitigate departures from established procedures and protocols?
• Change management: What are the procedures for implementing a change management process with adequate controls to reduce the risk of unauthorized changes?
• Risk mitigation: What process do you use to identify and develop strategies to respond to and reduce risk when business disruptions occur?

Your organization may undergo Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) audits. However, in comparing PCI DSS vs. SOC 2, SOC 2 encompasses a larger set of company and customer data.

Why Is SOC 2 Compliance Important?

SOC 2 compliance is essential for several reasons. From a business perspective, it assures potential and existing customers that your company takes sufficient steps to protect their sensitive information and data. They’ll have peace of mind and feel more confident about selecting your business as their product or service provider. You can also gain a competitive edge over organizations that haven’t achieved this benchmark.

The reports generated during the SOC 2 compliance process can also assist companies when:

• Developing and implementing vendor management programs.
• Implementing risk management and internal corporate governance procedures.
• Providing regulatory oversight.

Other SOC 2 compliance benefits include:

• Faster sales cycle times: Demonstrating SOC 2 compliance can speed up the new customer acquisition and onboarding process because your sales team can fulfill multiple requests for information with a SOC 2 report.
• Contributions to long-term success: Because SOC 2 compliance requires you to implement ongoing internal control practices, you ensure the security of your customers’ information for the duration of the business relationship.
• Regulatory compliance: The SOC 2 requirements dovetail with HIPAA and other security and privacy initiatives, contributing to your organization’s overall compliance efforts.

SOC 2 Controls List

Our SOC 2 controls list helps to assess your company’s internal controls, procedures and policies as they relate to the five Trust Services Principles.

Security

The security principle covers your organization’s steps to prevent unauthorized access to your systems and network. Security is also referred to as the “common criteria” and is the only mandatory SOC 2 compliance component.

The security aspect applies to all stages of the data’s journey through your systems and networks. To meet the standard, you must demonstrate that you’re taking appropriate steps to safeguard information during creation and collection. You’ll also have to implement secure procedures when processing, storing and transmitting the information. Finally, you must outline your measures for monitoring the data and detecting and preventing vulnerabilities.

Availability

This Trust Services Principle focuses on the accessibility of your organization’s systems. Specifically, it applies to the processes you’ve implemented to track and manage your infrastructure, data and software. Key areas include ensuring you have the essential system components and processing capacity to meet your business objectives.

SOC 2 compliance standards that apply to availability include measuring your current usage patterns to establish a capacity management baseline. You’ll also need to target external threats that could restrict or impede system availability — such as adverse weather conditions, natural disasters and electrical power outages — and have a plan in place to respond to them.

Confidentiality

Confidential information differs from private information in that it must be shared with another party to be classified as useful. This principle addresses the efficacy of companies’ methods for measuring and ensuring the confidentiality of customer data. Specifically, it focuses on the processes for restricting access and disclosing this information so that only authorized personnel can view it.

The SOC 2 compliance requirements in this area cover the procedures for identifying confidential information upon creation or receipt and implementing appropriate retention steps. It also encompasses the methods for destroying the information upon earmarking it for destruction.

Privacy

Privacy is the most recent addition to the Trust Services Principles. Its purpose is to ensure your systems adhere to your business’s privacy policies and other widely accepted privacy practices developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Specific focus areas include the processes you implement for collecting, using and retaining personal information and your methods of data disclosure and disposal.

The requirements include the clear and conspicuous use of language in privacy notices and the collection of information from reliable third-party sources. The latter criterion attempts to ensure the process is fair and legal.

Processing Integrity

The processing integrity principle encompasses the timely and accurate delivery of data. It ensures that data processing procedures are valid and authorized when performing transactions on behalf of another organization. A customer contract often includes most of the assurances these controls attempt to address. Adherence to this standard provides a vehicle for mapping these existing commitments to your series controls.

Specific SOC 2 compliance requirements in this area include creating and maintaining records of system inputs and defining your processing activities.

What’s Included in Our SOC 2 Controls and Compliance Checklist?

Our SOC 2 checklist provides a criteria list of the following:

Download Our Free SOC 2 Controls List and Compliance Checklist PDF

LogicManager offers SOC 2 compliance software that provides a powerful risk management tool for your organization. Use it to centralize your risk management program and streamline your processes. Our automated tools enable you to adhere to the Test Services Principles and meet your compliance requirements.

You can also use our free controls list and compliance checklist to assess your SOC 2 readiness and identify issues impacting your business that require attention. Use these tools to take a proactive approach to your compliance needs.

Download your checklist today, and contact us to schedule a free compliance software demo.