Preparing for a system and organization controls (SOC) compliance audit for the first time can be challenging. Many organizations, especially small to midsize businesses (SMBs), underestimate the level of planning and effort that goes into completing a successful SOC audit, adding to their security-related stress.
Without proper preparation, SMBs risk missing milestones and deadlines, which can result in additional fees to complete a SOC audit. Addressing these 10 questions can help an organization prevent delays, determine their level of preparedness to complete an audit, and hopefully limit unnecessary work and effort from process owners and employees critical to the business.
1. Risk assessment: Has a risk assessment been completed?Risk assessments should be performed annually in order to effectively identify, manage, and mitigate risks. As part of the risk assessment process, the organization should review the effectiveness of their current controls environment as well as consider the implementation of additional controls to further strengthen their internal controls environment.
2. Risk mitigation: Has management identified, selected, and developed risk mitigation activities for the risks identified during the risk assessment?After identifying and assessing the severity of each risk, management should determine the risk mitigation strategy to be used for each identified risk based on the organization's risk appetite. Management can use several different strategies including to accept the risk, mitigate the risk through the implementation of controls, transfer the risk to another organization, or avoid the risk by choosing to discontinue the associated process or removing the associated assets.
3. Control activities: Have control activities been identified, documented, and implemented to mitigate risks to an acceptable level that enables the organization to achieve ..
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