SOC 2 is regarding proving that your mechanisms are reliable, private, available, and safe. The correct approach strikes a balance between sustainable controls and speed for startups. Vanta automates almost all of the evidence gathering and observing. However, the success is dependent upon reasonable planning, clear plans, and clean integration.

Introduction

Vanta can be defined as the platform that automates control management, evidence gathering, and security monitoring for audits. Here are a few steps that must be incorporated to implement Vanta in the correct manner. Let’s have a look!

Preparation: Defining The Scope and Objectives

Decide which trust-service standard, teams, and systems will be in scope. You should limit the scope to the little service sets that include customer-impacting systems, as fewer assets indicate quicker readiness and lower audit cost.

Create A Team To Work On The Project

Allot a project leader, endpoint, identity, technical cloud owners, and executive sponsors. Create a simple timeline with goals: auditor engagement, internal readiness, remediation, Vanta setup, and delivery.

Conduct A Gap Evaluation

Inventory assets, users, third-party services, and data flows. Identify missing controls (e.g., MFA, endpoint management, logging, backups, and least-privilege). Document current policies (incident response, access management, change control). This becomes your remediation backlog.

Data flows, 3^rd party services, users, and assets. Detect missing controls, i.e., least-privileges, backups, logging, endpoint management, and MFA. Write down current plans, i.e, change control, access management, and incident response. This becomes your backlog for remediation.

Proper Setting Up of Vanta

You must sign into Vanta and:

• Arrange compliance targets and company settings for both SOC 2 Type I and Type II.
• Incorporate your identity provider ( Google Workspace, Azure AD, and Okta), Course Control ( GitHub and GitLab), cloud provider (Azure, GCP, and AWS), device management, and HR systems.
• Allow automated evidence altering and gathering.
• Create and import plans in Vanta to match SOC 2 requirements.

Resolve High-impact Gaps Initially

Give priority to remediation by audit and risk impact:

• Implement MFA on all user accounts.
• Allow centralized and SSO user provisioning where it is possible.
• Position disk encryption and endpoint protection.
• Arrange centralized retention and logging for main systems.
• Apply backups and assess restore processes.

Trace remediation things inside Vanta or your task tracker and detect evidence as accomplished.

Develop and Document Policies

Create actionable and concise plans: Access control, authentication and passwords, retention and backup, vendor management, change management, and incident response. Guarantee that policies are signed off by the top management and saved where auditors can see them.

Function and Gather Evidence Continuously

Utilize Vanta to gather ongoing evidence such as policy attestations, vulnerability scans, device inventory, and user provisioning logs. Do regular reviews to keep evidence up-to-date. This converts a one-time pass into continuous compliance.

Mock Audit and Internal Readiness

Run an internal review before recruiting an external auditor:

• Guarantee that every control indicates passing in Vanta.
• Go through the sample evidence for every control.
• Do a proper tabletop incident response exercise.
• Resolve last-minute gaps.

Select An Auditor and Finish The Audit

You should opt for a CPA company that has experience with SaaS startups and SOC 2. Test designs for type 1 auditors and test operational effectiveness over time for type 2. Offer auditors organized evidence and Vanta access.

Maintain and Enhance

At the end of the report, onboard the latest systems intentionally into the scope, implement periodic risk evaluations, rotate responsibilities, and keep on observing. Utilize the SOC 2 report in sales cover statements. However, you should continue to invest in the controls that earned it.

Conclusion

Getting SOC 2 right is a combo of disciplined ops and good tooling. Vanta decreases manual effort. However, prioritized remediation, documentation, and culture of your startup are significant to make certifications sustainable and meaningful.  

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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