Understanding of SOC 1 and SOC 2 Audits

Understanding of SOC 1 and SOC 2 Audits

 

The capability of the security operation center (SOC) is to screen, prevent, recognize, examine, and answer cyber threats nonstop. SOC groups are accused of checking and safeguarding the organization’s resources including protected innovation, faculty information, business frameworks, and brand integrity.

SOC reports are administered by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and focus on offering confirmation that the controls service organizations set up to safeguard their clients’ resources (information much of the time) are successful. Some main types of SOC for Cybersecurity, with subsets of each are,

SOC 1

SOC 1 aims to control objectives within a SOC 1 process area and documents internal controls relevant to an audit of a user entity’s financial statements. It controls how you process and secure a customer`s financial information. Need to know mostly by auditors.

SOC 2

SOC 2 is a system to assist with servicing organizations to exhibit their cloud and data center security controls. It reports on your internal controls related to security.

When does my organization need a SOC Audit?

SOC compliance and reviews are planned for organizations that offer types of assistance to different organizations. As a rule, an organization’s clients don’t have profound visibility into their surroundings, making it hard to believe that an organization appropriately safeguards delicate information, and so on. A SOC review/audit includes an outsider inspector approving the specialist provider’s controls and frameworks to guarantee that it can offer the ideal types of assistance. As a rule, organizations need a SOC review/audit when their clients demand one.

What is a SOC 1 report?

SOC 1 is focused on financial reporting. The goal is to have and demonstrate internal controls for how to handle the customers’ financial information. The clients/customer need to report this data to their auditors, thus, normally, it’s vital to them.

What does SOC 1 compliance do?

The company provides services to other companies. As such, services may affect how the customers report their finances as something the customer’s auditors care about very much. SOC 1 compliance is all about proving to have the controls in place to ensure that the design of your service, as well as their actual operations, are effective and predictable.

Who cares about SOC 1 compliance?

Organization’s clients care, about how the organization handle their financial information. For tech new businesses, SOC 1 is seldom requested and seldom essential. At the point when organizations really do utilize SOC 1, internal auditors plan SOC 1 reports, and external auditors survey and check the reports. Generally, SOC 1 compliance stays between auditors.

What is a SOC 2 report?

SOC 2 is centered around tasks and compliance, particularly with respect to distributed computing and information security. The objective is to have and, exhibit inside controls that line up with AICPA’s.

What does SOC 2 compliance do?

Cloud computing and its ascendant development empowered organizations the world over to re-appropriate capabilities to support associations/companies. SOC 2 emerged to address this interest. SOC 2 and comparative guidelines are logically simply going to turn out to be more significant. Reevaluating may have started with rethought IT administrations, yet cloud computing presently implies that any way of capability or element should be possible by another organization. With API-first organizations, you could reevaluate with as little exertion as a couple of lines of code.

Who cares about SOC 2 compliance?

SOC 2 reports will quite often have a more extensive readership. Organizations will share SOC 2 reports to clients, managers, and controllers, frequently with a NDA joined.

Differences between the types:

Notwithstanding SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3 compliance, there are likewise Type 1 and Type 2 reports. For instance, an organization might have a SOC 1 Type 1, SOC 2 Type 1, and so on. The contrast between the various sorts of SOC reviews/audits lies in the degree and span of the assessment:

  • Type 1: Reviews/audits give a depiction of the organization’s compliance status. The auditor tests one control to check that the organization’s explanation and configuration are exact. If so, the organization is conceded a Type 1 compliance confirmation or certification.
  • Type 2: Tests an organization’s capacity to support compliance. The auditor tests the organization’s compliance controls over a set period. On the off chance that the organization stays compliant over the assessment period, a Type 2 compliance report is conceded.

 

 

Who gets SOC audits?

Not all organizations are made equivalent. The primary distinction between organizations lies in the effect their items and services have on client tasks. Service providers that deal with clients’ delicate data should give organized documentation describing how they’re safeguarding clients’ data. The primary target of reports is to give comfort to the client’s organization as it connects with security. This report can assist clients in realizing that their processes and controls are safe and sound. By having an autonomous, outsider auditor look at the controls, current clients or prospective clients can see that you’re working in a moral, safe way. This makes them bound to entrust the organization with sensitive information.

Type I SOC reports

Type I SOC reports expect to investigate the functionality of a service-based organization’s controls at a single moment. For instance, “audit report for November 30, 2022.”

Type I reports attempt to address the inquiry: Are your controls compliant with SOC 1 or SOC 2 at this moment?

This kind of report for the most part covers whether your interior controls are appropriately planned by the restrictive rules of SOC 1 (control goals) or SOC 2 (trust standards) with regard to the help you’re giving.

Some of the main components of a Type I SOC report include:

  • Fairness: Auditor’s opinion on the fairness of management’s description of control objectives
  • Suitability:Auditor’s opinion on the suitability of control design in the context of the service provided
  • Performance:Auditor’s opinion on the performance of controls at a single point in time
Type II SOC reports

Type II SOC reports, then again, plan to test the controls of a service organization in a scope of time, ordinarily six to 12 sequential schedule months. For instance, “audit report for the time of November 30, 2021, to May 30, 2022.”

Hence, Type II SOC 2 reports are considerably more thorough than Type I SOC reports and ordinarily cover the continuous functionality of internal controls over longer periods. This will give clients more trust in your processes.

Remember; Type II reports cover precisely the same measures as Type I (fairness, suitability, and performance).

The main distinction is that Type II reports explore the organization’s controls over of six to a year and give a more exhaustive explanation of how each control performed.

Type II reports likewise add an additional segment connected with the tests performed by the service auditor on the working viability of such controls.

Trust us to deliver the assurance you need

In this increasingly global and digital business landscape, companies enter partnerships with service providers who can implement and manage areas such as IT or accounting. Before a company hands over the keys to its infrastructure or accounts, it must gain comfort that its partner is trustworthy, secure, and operating according to industry requirements. A SOC report is the “trusted handshake” between service providers and their clients.

Visit our website https://graxoconsulting.com/ for more information. You can contact us at talktous@graxoconsulting.com  for your cybersecurity needs.