What is a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment? The Complete Guide
Here is everything you need to know about SOC 2 readiness assessments, costs, and how to prepare.
When your SOC 2 audit is approaching, your organization should have a fair amount of confidence that you’ll come out the other end with an unqualified (AKA perfect) report.
But how do you make sure you’re prepared to pass your audit?
The answer is a readiness assessment. A SOC 2 readiness assessment inspects your organization’s processes, internal controls, documentation, and policies to ensure everything you need for a successful, unqualified SOC 2 report is in place.
After a readiness assessment your organization will know any gaps you’ll need to address before your official audit and have a clear remediation plan to get those fixes in place.
Here’s everything you need to know about SOC 2 readiness assessments:
What Is a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment?
SOC 2 is an information security standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). For many organizations, especially at the enterprise level, it’s a key part of risk management, enabling them to qualify which suppliers have a robust security posture and meet the standards required to handle sensitive information and customer data.
A SOC 2 readiness assessment, sometimes called a self-assessment, can be conducted internally or by a third-party auditor. The goal is to run through a mock assessment to see how your organization would fare in a real audit and how ready you are to successfully pass an audit.
A readiness assessment will review your policies, and infrastructure against the Trust Services Criteria (TSC) you’re being audited for and help your organization to figure out:
- Are you ready for the real SOC 2 audit?
- Do you have the correct controls in place?
- What (if any) gaps need to be filled before the audit?
A SOC 2 readiness assessment isn’t mandatory for SOC 2 compliance but in many cases, especially if it’s your first time working towards SOC 2, it’s highly recommended.
Why Are Readiness Assessments Valuable?
If you encounter any gaps in your official SOC 2 audit, they’ll count against you and could lead to a qualified report. Whereas in a readiness assessment, finding a gap is a win as you found it while there’s time to fix.
Skipping a readiness assessment is a bit like going live on Broadway without a dress rehearsal. Here’s how it’ll help your business:
- It’ll increase your chances of success: If you’re working towards SOC 2, the only measure of success is coming out the other side with an unqualified report. A readiness assessment will help you avoid common mistakes in the audit readiness process and improve your chances of getting an unqualified report.
- Reduces errors: If a control isn’t quite working correctly or you’re missing a policy, this will be spotted during your readiness assessment. If it’s your first time working towards SOC 2, a readiness assessment gives you confidence that your team hasn’t overlooked anything that could lead to a qualified report.
- Less stress: Your business likely has a lot of pipeline relying on a successful SOC 2 audit. With a readiness assessment, you can go into the real assessment confident that you’ll meet compliance requirements rather than sweating it out while your pipeline hangs in the balance.
When Should You Perform a Readiness Audit?
Ideally, you’ll give yourself plenty of time ahead of your official SOC 2 audit, this gives your team space to remediate any gaps or complete any policies that you may spot are missing during the readiness audit. When you first start working towards SOC 2, set out milestones for both your readiness audit and your official third-party audit.
Who Performs a Readiness Audit?
To achieve a SOC 2 certification, you’ll need an audit from a Certified Public Accounting (CPA) firm. But with a readiness audit, you don’t have to go to a CPA. While a service organization can perform readiness audits in-house, many bring in external auditors or consultants who are familiar with the SOC 2 with the controls and processes as they know what they’re looking for and can cast an objective eye over your security controls and processes during a gap analysis.
How Much Does a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment Cost?
The price for a readiness assessment can vary based on factors like your company's size, cybersecurity complexity, and which Trust Services Criteria you've selected. But generally, if you work with a third-party assessment company or consultant, you’ll typically pay between $10-17k.
What to Look For During a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment
During an official SOC 2 audit, you should expect that every policy, control, and piece of evidence will be inspected and scrutinized to make sure it meets requirements. If you want an unqualified SOC 2 report, you need to make sure that everything you need is in place.
Here’s what to look for during a readiness assessment:
Gaps in Controls and Polices
Your SOC 2 readiness assessment gives you the opportunity to spot any gaps in your organization’s controls ahead of your real SOC 2 audit. Your auditor will look at the relevant Trust Services Criteria your organization has chosen to be included in your attestation report and measure your systems and policies against that. During the audit, you’ll also be able to perform vulnerability scanning, risk assessments, and penetration tests.
You’ll also need to make sure you have the right policies (like your Disaster Recovery Plan or Incident Response Plan) and employee training in place to satisfy the TSCs.
If you work with an outside auditor or consultant, they’ll generally give you a list of recommended actions and gaps that need to be addressed before your audit. You then need to make sure you create a remediation plan (complete with timelines) so you can close gaps ahead of your official SOC 2 audit.
Also, make sure to close any process gaps (like running weekly security meetings, performing quarterly access reviews, and ensuring new-hire onboarding checklists are actually followed).
Documentation and Evidence
Both SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 rely heavily on evidence collection. Automation software like Vanta can help streamline your evidence collection as without automation tools, you’ll need to manually take screenshots and update spreadsheets to show your controls are working as they should be.
The types of documentation you may need includes:
- Policies and Procedures: Security Policy, Data Privacy Policy, Incident Response Plan, Disaster Recovery Plan, Vendor Management Policy.
- System Documentation: Network Diagrams and System Configurations, Audit Logs, Incident Reports.
- Security Controls: User Access Logs, Training Records, Penetration Test Reports, Vulnerability Scanning Reports.
Get Ready for SOC 2 with Workstreet
Before entering the official auditing process, you want to be confident that your organization is ready for SOC 2, a readiness assessment is one of the best ways to do this.
At Workstreet, we help companies achieve SOC 2 compliance, offering expert SOC 2 implementation services that get you audit-ready quickly. From Type I to Type II, we'll guide you through every step of the process with proven methodologies. Get in touch with our team to see how we can help.
