Fedramp certification & Cybersecurity & Compliance Firm

  8 Common SOC 2 Questions   If you are new to a SOC 2 audit, you must be wondering what information will be audited, what employees are involved in the audit, and what is included in the overall audit process.  Considering the complexity of undergoing a SOC 2 audit, we have provided answers to eight common SOC 2 questions on auditing and reporting.    Whether you have just started your business or you’re running an established organization, you know that handling the data of your client is a serious undertaking. A SOC 2 report provides information about how effectively you are managing the security, privacy, and integrity of a client’s sensitive information.    1.   Why is it important to be SOC 2 compliant?   Data privacy and security has never been more important. It is likely that if your business wants to work with large customers or those in regulated industries, you will be asked to provide proof of your security control...

  It’s a common practice to shorten long and complicated organizational names to more digestible acronyms. However, navigating these acronyms and the programs behind them can sometimes feel like sifting through alphabet soup.  That’s why I’m here to help decode one of the most-well known federal programs: the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program—otherwise known as FedRAMP.   What is FedRAMP?  Created in 2011, FedRAMP was designed to provide a cost-efficient and risk-based approach to cloud adoption for federal departments and agencies. The creation of the FedRAMP security assessment framework was based on the Risk Management Framework (RMF) that implements the FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) requirements, and NIST SP 800-53. FedRAMP allows for cloud service providers (CSPs) to be assessed and authorized by federal agencies.   FedRAMP provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and ...

Many organizations outsource their business operations and services to third-party vendors, possibly putting client data at risk. Therefore, organizations request that their vendors achieve SOC 2 compliance to demonstrate IT security standards. Let’s review additional reasons you need SOC 2 compliance now. Protecting your clients’ personal and trusted information is critical.  Mishandled data can make your organization vulnerable to breaches and increasing security threats, such as the  CloudBleed bug ,  Wannacry ransomware attacks ,  Spectre vulnerability , and more. In addition,  it’s common for businesses to outsource various operations in order to leverage technology and skilled resources while reducing costs. In such cases, vulnerabilities in the application and network of your provider may leave your business open to a variety of attacks, including malware installation or ransomware, significantly costing y...

  In recent years, ‘compliance’ has become a bit of a buzzword within the cyber security sphere. However, whilst companies have been concerning themselves with ticking regulatory boxes, they have lost sight of the outcome. An outcome-driven approach Instead of conducting box-ticking exercises, organizations should be driving information security priorities and investments with an outcome-driven approach that takes their capabilities into account. All too often, businesses assume they can quickly adopt new, sophisticated cyber security schemes where no such capabilities have been before. But this is not the case. Information security programs have to go through a maturation process, and these improvements take time. In much the same way you would teach a child to walk before teaching them to run, organizations’ cyber security programs have to grow up — mature — steadily, taking one cautious step at a time. To understand how ‘mature’ a company’s information security is, cyber securit...

For many organizations, obtaining a System and Organization Controls (SOC) attestation report is table stakes for doing business. Many customers and vendors won’t even consider working with an organization that can’t produce a SOC report issued by an independent third-party assessor. Going through a SOC examination for the first time can seem overwhelming, but by taking the time to work through a simple audit checklist, many organizations can set themselves up for success. What is SOC Compliance? Companies are often asked if they are “SOC compliant” or if they can provide proof of “SOC compliance.” These terms can create confusion around what a SOC report represents, because SOC itself is not a compliance framework. SOC reports are attestation examinations performed by an independent third party to assess whether the organization’s internal controls are designed and operating effectively to mitigate different types of risk. The guidelines for what types of risk mitigation measures are ...