According to a 2024 survey by the World Economic Forum, nearly 40% of business professionals anticipate that cyber threats will trigger a global crisis. In this environment, SOC 2 compliance is increasingly important, not just for your organization’s data security, but also for its reputation and customer relationships. The SOC 2 security criteria is a key part of implementing this framework.
The SOC 2 Security Trust Services Criteria Explained
The SOC 2 information security framework is built on five Trust Services Criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The SOC 2 security criteria covers infosec best practices, including access control, risk mitigation, and vulnerability management.
This TSC provides a foundation for all the rest. By implementing strong cybersecurity controls, technology safeguards, and governance, enterprises can achieve the other objectives of SOC 2 compliance. For example, robust security is necessary to keep sensitive data confidential and meet processing integrity requirements.
Security is the only mandatory criteria for all SOC 2 audits. For this reason, the security TSC is also known as common criteria, or the CC series of SOC 2 controls.
List of SOC 2 Security Controls
The goal of SOC 2 security controls is to protect your organization’s data and systems. An effective cybersecurity program helps to prevent data breaches, unauthorized access, ransomware attacks, and other harms.
The security TSC is divided into nine focus areas:
- CC1: Control Environment
- CC2: Communication and Information
- CC3: Risk Assessment
- CC4: Monitoring Activities
- CC5: Control Activities
- CC6: Logical and Physical Access Controls
- CC7: System Operations
- CC8: Change Management
- CC9: Risk Mitigation
Auditors look at all nine categories when analyzing compliance for SOC 2 reports, though individual points of focus can vary depending on the organization’s environment and operations.
1. Control Environment
In SOC 2, your company’s control environment is closely related to governance, organizational structure, and policies. In other words, this focus area means creating a culture of compliance. For example:
- Ethical standards and integrity
- Commitment to security
- The necessary oversight roles
- Clearly defined responsibilities
- Executive/board involvement
- Accountability
Cybersecurity policies only work if you have a dependable framework that supports, implements, and follows through on them.
2. Communication and Information
Communication and information controls revolve around providing accurate, clear, and up-to-date information to employees, managers, and decision-makers. This focus area has several purposes:
- Helping organizations accurately assess risks and improve decisions
- Reducing information bottlenecks and data silos
- Preventing confusion, errors, and accidental noncompliance
- Avoiding contradictory or incorrect policies and procedures
- Improving internal reporting and response capabilities
- Meeting regulatory requirements for data breaches and other events
Compliance means making sure all personnel have access to program policies, understand them, and know how to apply them. Enterprises also need to establish and maintain a communication infrastructure, such as authorized channels, platforms, tools, and/or applications.
3. Risk Assessment
Successfully managing risks is a must for cybersecurity. After all, your organization can only defend against system vulnerabilities if you’re aware of them. This security focus area requires:
- Defining your risk appetite and program objectives clearly
- Identifying related risks, vulnerabilities, and attack surfaces
- Evaluating and prioritizing risks based on their threat level
- Creating policies and procedures for risk avoidance, mitigation, and management
- Periodically assessing risk mitigation efforts for effectiveness
How often do you need to assess risks? At the very least, whenever your internal operations, control environment, or external threats change.
4. Monitoring Activities
Ongoing monitoring is one of the most important defensive layers of cybersecurity. To comply with this control area, your organization must carry out:
- Consistent monitoring of information systems and controls
- Regular compliance checks
- Periodic internal audits that analyze the effectiveness of your controls and identify weaknesses or problems
- Prompt corrective measures and improvements
The CC4 focus area doesn’t specify a monitoring frequency, but auditors evaluate whether your controls are appropriate for your organization’s size, complexity, information sensitivity, and risks.
5. Control Activities
CC5 covers the framework’s specific security controls. You must have a detailed list of SOC 2 security controls, including policies, procedures, and assigned responsibilities.
A comprehensive security framework should have detailed access control policies for roles and devices, such as software timeout settings. Fraud-avoidance measures are another example, such as requiring a committee to approve policy changes instead of a single individual.
6. Logical and Physical Access Controls
Compliance with the security TSC requires preventing unauthorized individuals from accessing sensitive data or key systems. Robust defenses take into account external threat actors, software vulnerabilities, and internal threats like malicious employees.
Physical security encompasses key cards, door locks, security guards, and restricted areas, including server rooms. Logical access controls refer to digital protection, such as unique usernames, passwords, and multifactor authentication.
Cybersecurity best practices encourage role-based permissions and zero-trust policies. Users should only have access to the resources necessary to carry out their responsibilities.
7. System Operations
As part of SOC 2 security controls, system operations involve IT security for hardware and software, from on-prem servers and computers to operating systems and cloud-based platforms. Keeping your organization’s technology infrastructure operational — part of the SOC 2 availability criteria — requires investing in resources for system monitoring, data loss prevention, and emergency backups.
Your security program should also have incident response procedures. It’s vital to respond immediately to suspicious activity, intrusions, and data breaches.
8. Change Management
CC8 focuses on establishing safeguards against introducing new vulnerabilities into your system when carrying out upgrades or other changes. This area is closely related to IT best practices, including timely security patches, testing, validation, and documentation. Enterprises should also have clear policies for approving and implementing any system changes or software installations.
9. Risk Mitigation
Many SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 audits evaluate the effectiveness of your risk mitigation strategies. This focus area looks at preventative safeguards, detection tools, and risk management activities:
- Firewall security
- Data encryption at rest and in transit
- Anti-phishing training and email security
- Antivirus tools
- Network vulnerability scanning
In addition to technological defenses, your organization also needs detailed plans and procedures for responding to emergent threats or evolving risks.
Improve and Simplify SOC 2 Security Compliance for Your Organization
The multilayered approach of the SOC 2 security framework helps to keep your data, reputation, and operations safe in a rapidly changing world. Enterprise automation platforms can enhance SOC 2 compliance and integration throughout your organization. Discover Compyl’s powerful compliance capabilities today.
