Top 4 SOC 2 Audit Questions

SOC 2 Audits have become the standard for SaaS and other B2B technology-focused companies. People preparing for the SOC 2 audit process for the first time have common questions such as:

SOC 2 Type 1 versus SOC 2 Type 2 audit?
What time period should our SOC 2 audit cover?
Do we need a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment?
Which SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria do we need to follow?

This quick video discusses the common requirements and considerations for your SOC 2 audit.

TRANSCRIPT:

the demand for SOC 2 audits has grown tremendously just over the last couple

years alone more and more large enterprises are

requiring their technology vendors to go through the soc 2 audit process so

we get a lot of questions about these there are a lot of considerations do i

do a sock two type one or a type two, do i need to do a readiness assessment

first you know what length of time should my

type two audit be all of those things and give you a couple pointers on what

we see going on in the environment so first i always always recommend a readiness

assessment before diving into a sock to audit even if you're already aligned with an

industry standard framework even something more complex like NIST 853 you still

want to do a SOC 2 readiness assessment because you need to understand

what you have to have in place before the auditor comes in you also need to

think about your trust service criteria which criteria

will you be audited on if you don't have a specific requirement i always

recommend starting with a security tsc or trust service criteria now that's

standard that's going to be in any soc 2 audit

but why add additional criteria if you don't have to most of the time what we see is

companies requiring soc 2 type 2 audits over a 12 month

period but they don't necessarily specify any more criteria beyond

the security tsc so keep that in mind think about a 12-month process now the

time that really makes the most sense for a sock 2 type 1 audit

which is a point in time assessment as opposed to assessment over a period of time

sock 2 type 1 is really good when you have a client demanding some sort of report by a

certain date because they can be done much quicker the downside to a soc 2 type 1

is that it it certainly doesn't hold the weight of a type 2

so be sure to consider the trust service criteria that you need to align with the

type of assessment and the length of time for the assessment

and remember if you have not done a soc 2 audit or have not done one

recently it's very important to have a risk assessment final thing i'll leave

you with is once you do the risk assessment give yourself about three three months or so

before you actually get into the audit process that'll give you

time to remediate any shortcomings and be prepared

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Written by Zach Fuller

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