What controls are in place at your third parties?
A SOC report is an independent audit report performed by a public accounting firm. The report will attest to the existence and effectiveness of controls specified by the company that’s being audited, your vendor. Basically, the report should tell you if your vendor has the right controls in place to safeguard your data and if those controls are actually working based on the scope of the audit.
It’s important to thoroughly review the vendor SOC reports as you obtain them. You can think of SOC reports as giving you the power to silently be in your third party’s room as the inner workings of the company are described.
The Different SOC Reports:
- SOC 1: Designed to review a vendor’s internal controls as they relate to financial reporting.
- SOC 2: An examination on the vendor’s controls over one or more of the 5 Trust Services Principles (TSP). This audit is for a broader audience than the SOC 1, containing more technical controls protecting the chosen third party service provider(s).
- SOC 3: A high-level summary of the SOC 2 audit that comes with a seal of approval a vendor can publicly share.
