Third party organisations that successfully complete a SOC 2 audit can offer their clients reasonable assurance that an independent reviewer has assessed their controls that relate to operations and compliance; and they meet the criteria prescribed by AICPA for the five TSCs. The report helps to prioritise risks in order to ensure that high quality services are being delivered to the clients.
Benefits of a SOC 2 report:
- A SOC report allows service provider to build trust with their customer by demonstrating strong internal control practices.
- SOC reporting options provide visibility and transparency to customers around the service provider’s operations and internal controls.
- The SOC 2 and 3 reporting options open the door to allow reporting on controls beyond financial reporting, which may result in a streamlined process for receiving and reviewing reports.
- A SOC report demonstrates a strong risk management focus and robust internal controls, which can be an advantage against competitors.
- Since many service providers are global organisations that support clients with international operations, SOC reporting delivers consistent assurance over the security, availability, integrity, confidentiality and privacy of systems and data, and can help measure performance and delivery across similar organisations.
- SOC reporting provides a fresh and independent perspective of risks and controls to both outsourced service providers and their customers.
- SOC reporting provides opportunities to service providers to streamline their internal controls over security, availability, integrity, confidentiality and privacy of systems and data with best practices.
Illustrative Examples for need of SOC 2 Report
The application for SOC 2 is very broad and can be applied to every industry and business sector. SOC 2 will allow service organisations to provide assurance to customers and other stakeholders that effective internal controls are in place.
This also offers a standardised format for meeting a broad range of regulatory and non-regulatory control requirements. Companies which are required to comply with data privacy and data protection regulations (e.g. GDPR) can obtain a SOC 2 report to demonstrate to customers that effective controls are in place to comply with these regulations
Cloud Computing
Cloud service providers need to provide their customers assurance of effective controls across all the SOC 2. Trust Criteria in order for those customers to comfortably entrust the cloud provider with their sensitive data and critical computing needs. SOC 2 reports provide a way to build trust with customers and demonstrate compliance in controls with various industry regulations and standards (e.g. Cloud Security Alliance).
Data Centre
Data centres and co-locations should provide a reliable infrastructure in hosting critical systems for their customers to ensure business continuity. A secure environment is also a top priority to provide assurance over the integrity of data hosted within their environment. SOC 2 will provide a high level of assurance to customers that the data centre is secure, highly available, and operating with high standards of integrity.
SOC 2 for Other IT Managed Service Companies
Companies providing other IT Managed Services to customers including application management, job processing, network monitoring, and other IT outsourced activities can leverage to SOC 2 reports demonstrating to their customers that IT managed services provided are within their service level agreements. This report can provide assurance that you have effective controls in place aligned with other various control frameworks (e.g. PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, COBIT).
About E Com Security SOC 2 Reports
E Com Security Solutions is recognised as one of the market leaders in security, privacy, and internal control services. We have a dedicated practice of risk and control specialists with deep industry focus and experience. We have assisted over 1000 Organisations on SOC 2 Reports and our opinion stating that your operating controls meet SOC 2 standards is likely to reinforce customer confidence in your company.
We use tailored approach that works for you – reducing the effort needed to gather required information while also helping you and your staff gain a clearer understanding of the SOC 2 requirements. We also have our proprietary processes, templates, and deliverables which allow us to accelerate every phase of the audit and reporting process while keeping you up-to-date in all phases of the engagement.
Follow Us