SOC 2 Automation: What's Possible and What's Not For Your Compliance

Whether you're a technology company that needs to comply with SOC 2 standards or a FinTech company that must maintain business reputation with customers and protect sensitive financial and personally identifiable information, compliance is necessary. With the increased threat of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and malicious attacks on the rise, it's becoming easier for companies—especially newer startups—to make inadvertent mistakes that put them at risk. Yet compliance is necessary, and for new businesses just starting out, it seems nearly impossible to achieve. But with SOC 2 automation, much of the heavy lifting manually required for compliance can be avoided, saving time, reducing error, and more. But like any automation, knowing what's automated and what's not is half the work.

Therefore, this article will explain what FinTech companies don't have to do when it comes to SOC 2 compliance thanks to automation, what tools are available to automate required tasks, and what's still required to be done without using automated services. And don't forget—Bitpulse can handle all your SOC 2 compliance so you can focus on what you do best.

What is SOC 2 and Why It Matters?

SOC 2 compliance involves a myriad of activities—from policies created to policies enforced to evidence collected to auditing footprints. Using automation for such activities can save resources, decrease human error, and increase organizational flexibility. Below are elements of SOC 2 compliance which are highlighted through steps in the compliance journey where automation can assist:

Evidence Collection and Management

Evidence collection is central to SOC 2 compliance—i.e., the evidence that your systems and your processes are in place to execute all requisite security controls. Manual evidence collection is time-consuming and tedious. Not to mention, if your company scales, manual evidence collection can create inconsistencies.

What can be automated:

• Automated tracking: Tools like Bitpulse automatically track all your system activity, security configurations, and access control in real-time—which can be exported as evidence for your auditors.
• Documentation repository: Numerous cloud-based documentation solutions can contain your compliance repository—providing a level of security while ensuring that any needed information can be tracked and accessed in due time.
• Audit trails: Automation can create logs or trails of changes to systems, programs, and policies in real-time, indicating it was made at that time.

What can't be automated:

• Human understanding: While so much can be tracked and reported via automation, only a human can determine whether or not such findings make sense. For example, a nonhuman would not know how to ascertain data that shows a new security control was implemented to achieve compliance with another client's business process.
• Ongoing Risk Assessment Procedure: Accepting risk is part of life. Therefore, the SOC team must document each and every risk and communicate this to shareholders for this informed business decision. In addition, over time, as the company changes, certain risks may have more significant weighted assessments—and policies should change as such—which requires human assessment.

Operational Policies and Security Procedures

SOC 2 requires policies and procedures that operate and create security for the proper functioning and security of sensitive systems.

What's able to be automated:

• Employee onboarding/offboarding: As employees come and go or employees change roles, access to sensitive systems can be turned on and off in real time through allowance automation.
• Policy attestation and training tracking: Automation can trigger acceptance when employees are trained on policy and security, which eliminates human tracking that would be necessary otherwise.

What's NOT able to be automated:

• Policy creation: Policies need to be created for compliance needs and business needs. For example, general company security policies based upon business strategy and regulations still need feedback from your internal legal/compliance teams.

Audit and Reporting

SOC 2 audits require you to show up with documentation to show your compliance efforts as well as your secure and efficient systems. The auditor will review documentation, ask questions, and render compliance.

What's able to be automated:

• Audit readiness: Compliance-focused software will allow you to automate evidence collection and formatting to ensure you've gotten all documentation requirements met before it's time for an audit.
• Real-time reporting: Automated compliance solutions can maintain a constant audit-ready status with reports generated in real time based on your company's security posture and vulnerabilities, and areas of improvement can be assessed.

What cannot be automated:

• Human oversight: While the collection of documents may be automatically gathered and sorted, the final review and submission to auditors needs a human element.
• Discussion-based audits: Auditor onsite and remote audits require give-and-take, and human compliance teams need to be present to engage. They also need to assign context to questions from the auditor and answer accordingly.

Elements of SOC 2 Compliance That Cannot Be Automated

While there is a lot of legwork reduced and human hours minimized when it comes to automation for SOC 2 compliance, there are still many elements that require a real compliance team, security experts, and auditors. For example:

• Policy creation and intent: You still need someone to create custom policies and someone who understands the nuances of what security means for this specific client/project.
• Human intervention: An automated solution may be able to make recommendations, but only a human can assess and determine what's best when it comes to risk mitigation or incident response.
• Forum audits: There are compliance pre-audit checklists that can be automated to help someone get a successful audit, but the forums (live or virtual) are human-driven to assess understanding and compliance.

Bitpulse has the knowhow, technology and functionality needed to allow startup and scale-up companies to automate a lot of the SOC 2 compliance process. Where you need to gather evidence and reporting, make conformity assessments, or prepare for your audit, Bitpulse can facilitate these integrations so you can maintain your customer base and stay safe and secure while doing what you're doing without disruption for compliance.

Let automation work on the easy stuff so your team can focus on everything else; all that you need for SOC 2 compliance will come from the compliance solution at your fingertips with Bitpulse without disrupting your flow.