SOC2 Audit is a report that comprises details of evaluation on the service organization’s internal controls, policies, and procedures related to AICPA’S Trust Service Criteria. It is a report that assures the suitability and effectiveness of the service organization’s controls in context to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. It is an audit report that typically aids the client’s decision making in selecting a service organization to work in collaboration

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SOC2 Readiness Assessment –
What Should You Know

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A Readiness Assessment in general is an evaluation
process that suggests whether or not an organization
is compliant with a specific standard/regulation. The
assessment helps determine gaps in security controls
and demonstrates the effectiveness of controls to
achieve compliance. The assessment works as a guide
to identify and address the potential gaps in controls.
The readiness assessment basically works as a test run
for organizations looking to achieve compliance. So,
those organizations looking to achieve SOC2 Compli-
ance must first undergo a SOC2 Readiness Assess-
ment. So, let us today understand what is SOC2 readi-
ness assessment and why is it important.
Introduction

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What is SOC2 Readiness Assessment?
SOC2 Audit is critical for an organization looking to
achieve compliance. Preparing for an audit is critical and
knowing what to anticipate before an official SOC 2
audit is essential. So, this is when SOC2 Readiness
Assessment helps address this issue. A SOC 2 readiness
assessment is a kind of mock test of your organization’s
formal SOC2 Audit. It is a kind of test run that helps the
organization determine its readiness against the SOC2
requirements. SOC2 Readiness Assessment will help the
or ganization identify gaps and address the issues before
the formal audit. The test is essential, especially for those
Service Or-ganizations that are new to the AICPA SOC2
Audit. More-over, undergoing a SOC2 Readiness
assessment demon-strates the organization’s proactive
measures to ensure the success of their formal SOC2
Audit.
SOC2 Audit is critical for an organization looking to
achieve compliance. Preparing for an audit is critical and
knowing what to anticipate before an official SOC 2 audit
is essential. So, this is when SOC2 Readiness Assessment
helps address this issue. A SOC 2 readiness assessment is
a kind of mock test of your organization’s formal SOC2
Audit. It is a kind of test run that helps the organization
determine its readiness against the SOC2 requirements.
SOC2 Readiness Assessment will help the or ganization
identify gaps and address the issues before the formal
audit. The test is essential, especially for those Service Or-
ganizations that are new to the AICPA SOC2 Audit. More-
over, undergoing a SOC2 Readiness assessment demon-
strates the organization’s proactive measures to ensure
the success of their formal SOC2 Audit.
Why Conduct SOC2 Readiness
Assessment?
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No matter whether an organization believes that they are
ready for the final SOC 2 audit, they must still consider
conducting a SOC2 Readiness Assessment prior to under-
going an official audit. Adequate preparation is the key to
a smooth and successful audit process. SOC 2 readiness
ensures that the policies, process, procedures, security
controls, and relevant documentation are in place that
the auditor may require during the audit process. Given
below are the steps involved in conducting a SOC2 Readi-
ness Assessment that organizations must be aware of
when preparing for the audit.
How is SOC2 Readiness Assessment
Conducted?
The first step to the SOC2 readiness assessment is deter-
mining the scope of the audit. By this, we mean determin-
ing the areas that may be included in the audit. In the
SOC2 readiness assessment, and scoping stage, organiza-
tions will be surprised to find that they need to include
more systems and controls in scope than what they envi-
sioned for the audit. In most cases, organizations fail to in-
clude systems and controls in their scope of the audit but
the readiness assessment helps determine those gaps.
The organization at this initial stage must also pay atten-
tion to the two types of SOC 2 reports and determine
what applies to them.
Scope

5. Assessment
The next stage after determining the scope is conducting
an assessment to evaluate the controls in place against
the SOC 2 Trust Service Principles/Criteria which is most
rele-vant to your organization’s operations. This is to
examine and verify whether the necessary controls are
designed and operating effectively as per the
requirements. The readiness assessment to be
conducted by the organiza-tion’s internal team, or CPA
must include the following pro-cess-
The next stage after determining the scope is con-
ducting an assessment to evaluate the controls in
place against the SOC 2 Trust Service Principles/Cri-
teria which is most relevant to your organization’s
operations. This is to examine and verify whether the
necessary controls are designed and operating ef-
fectively as per the requirements. The readiness as-
sessment to be conducted by the organization’s in-
ternal team, or CPA must include the following pro-
cess-
Mapping existing controls against
framework-
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Post the assessment and evaluation process the
identified gaps must be listed and documented.
These documents can be used as a reference for
guidance in implementing additional security con-
trols for fixing gaps in systems and processes.
Documenting gaps in security
controls-
Every gap identified in the control environment
must be addressed with a remediation plan. The re-
mediation plans must include detailed steps and de-
liverables that meet the requirement.
Identifying remediation plans

6. Remediation should include actionable plans for address-
ing the gaps in systems. Post the assessment process,
meetings should be held with parties relevant to the SOC2
for the remediation activities. This remediation process
will help you perform better gap analysis and help address
the gaps effectively. Mover, it will also help foster a culture
of SOC 2 compliance throughout your organization
among all parties involved directly and indirectly.
Remediation
SOC 2 Readiness Assessment offers a great competitive
advantage to Service Providers. It helps organizations
align their security controls as per the SOC2 framework
and requirements. Undergoing a SOC 2 Readiness Assess-
ment and thereafter undergoing SOC 2 Audit will ensure
a smooth journey for achieving the final attestation. This
is because the readiness assessment process will involve
reviewing controls and determining gaps. This way the
assessment will give you a sense of whether the internal
controls are effective and whether the organization is on
track for the audit against the required SOC2 framework.
Knowing in advance about the gaps in compliance will
prevent any possibility failure of SOC2 audit and save the
organization’s time and money. This will help the organi-
zation stay ahead in the compliance process and ensure
the organization achieves SOC2 Attestation.
Conclusion
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