If you run a SaaS company or a tech-enabled service business, you already know the reality: customers rely on your product’s ability to protect their data.
SOC 2 is one of the most recognized ways to meet that bar. But SOC 2 can feel unclear at first. There’s no universal checklist you can copy. The requirements depend on your system, your risks, and what you promise customers.
That’s precisely why many startups and SMBs struggle; they’re unsure what counts as “enough,” what auditors look for, or how to prioritize controls without slowing the business down.
SOC 2 isn’t just about passing an audit. It’s about proving reliability early, so trust doesn’t become a blocker later. In this blog, you’ll learn what SOC 2 compliance requirements involve, what each Trust Services Criterion really means, and how the Common Criteria translate into real controls and evidence.
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Article Summary
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SOC 2 Reports Explained for SaaS and Service Providers
If you’re a service business that handles customer data, especially a SaaS or cloud provider, SOC 2 is one of the clearest ways to prove you take security seriously.
A SOC 2 report is a third-party auditor’s opinion on whether your controls meet the AICPA Trust Services Criteria (TSC). In simple terms, it tells your customers: “Yes, this company has the right safeguards in place, and they work.”
To get a SOC 2 report, you go through an independent audit performed by a licensed CPA or CPA firm. The auditor reviews how you protect your systems and data, your policies and procedures, your technical controls, and the evidence that those controls actually operate in practice.
SOC 2 is part of the broader SOC family:
- SOC 1 focuses on controls that could impact a customer’s financial reporting. It’s relevant if your service affects their accounting or financial statements.
- SOC 2 focuses on information security and trust, using the Trust Services Criteria (Security, and optionally Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy).
- SOC 3 covers the same criteria as SOC 2 but in a shorter, publicly shareable format.
When you hear “Type I” and “Type II,” that applies to SOC 1 and SOC 2:
- Type I evaluates whether your controls are properly designed and in place at a specific point in time. It answers: “Do you have the right controls today?”
- Type II evaluates whether those controls are well-designed and operate effectively over a period of time, usually 3 to 12 months. It answers: “Do your controls keep working consistently?” Auditors test this through evidence review, sampling, and observation of your actual operational processes.
If you’re a startup or SMB aiming to close enterprise deals, SOC 2 Type II is typically the report customers trust most, because it shows sustained control performance, not just a one-day snapshot.
Why AICPA Points of Focus Matter in SOC 2 Compliance?
When you start a SOC 2 journey, one thing becomes clear fast: there isn’t a rigid, step-by-step checklist like ISO 27001.
Instead, SOC 2 is built on the AICPA Trust Services Criteria (TSC). Think of the TSC as the requirements, and the Points of Focus as the AICPA’s guidance on what good controls usually look like in practice. The AICPA has developed the Points of Focus over a decade to set expectations for the processes companies should consider. Here’s what that means for you:
- Points of Focus are not mandatory controls, but they are strongly recommended to consider. You don’t “pass” SOC 2 by ticking them off. The AICPA describes them as important characteristics that support each criterion.
- They show auditors what “meeting a criterion” could look like. For each Common Criteria (CC) and any additional criteria you select, the Points of Focus give examples of how an organization might satisfy that requirement.
- They help you choose and prioritize the proper controls for your system. Since SOC 2 is scope-dependent, you decide what controls fit your product, data flows, risks, and customer commitments, then you prove those controls work. The Points of Focus help you avoid guessing.
So what does the AICPA focus on through these Points of Focus? These points highlight the processes most companies have in place to meet the criteria and ensure SOC 2 compliance with best practices.They guide you toward controls in areas auditors expect to see for Security and other criteria, such as:
- Access controls (logical and physical): How do you prevent unauthorized system or facility access
- System operations and monitoring: How you detect, respond to, and learn from security events
- Configuration and change management: How you control changes to code, infrastructure, and environments
- Vendor and subservice oversight: How you assess and monitor third parties that support your service.
If you’re an SMB or startup aiming for SOC 2, use them as a practical blueprint to design controls that make sense for your business and that an auditor can verify with evidence.
SOC 2 Compliance Requirements You Need to Know
SOC 2 doesn’t give you a single checklist to copy and paste. Instead, you’re evaluated against the AICPA Trust Services Criteria (TSC). These are the five areas your auditor can test. Security is always required. The other four are added only if they match your service commitments and customer expectations.
Here is a list of essential SOC 2 requirements that your business must meet to ensure data security, build customer trust, and successfully pass your audit.
- Security
Security is the baseline SOC 2 requirement. It covers how you protect customer data across its full lifecycle, creation, use, processing, transmission, and storage. Every SOC 2 report includes Security, and it’s evaluated using the Common Criteria (CC1–CC9). These are the controls your auditor will actually test. Below is what each CC area expects from you
CC1: Control Environment
The leadership sets an authentic, enforceable tone for ethics, security, and accountability. This is the foundation for everything else.
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Criteria |
What it covers |
What this means for you |
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CC1.1 |
Commitment to integrity and ethical values |
You have clear standards of conduct, and leaders model them. |
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CC1.2 |
Board independence and oversight |
Your board or equivalent oversight body is independent enough to challenge management and review security risks. |
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CC1.3 |
Org structure and responsibilities |
Roles, reporting lines, and segregation of duties are clearly defined. |
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CC1.4 |
Commitment to competence |
You hire and retain people capable of running security controls. |
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CC1.5 |
Accountability for controls |
Owners of controls are named, measured, and held responsible. |
CC2: Communication & Information
This means your people receive the correct security information at the right time, and that external communication is handled correctly.
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Criteria |
What it covers |
What this means for you |
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CC2.1 |
Information quality and relevance |
You identify, capture, and use reliable information to support controls. |
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CC2.2 |
Internal communication |
Teams understand control objectives, policies, and their responsibilities. |
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CC2.3 |
External communication |
You communicate appropriately with customers, regulators, and vendors about security matters. |
CC3: Risk Assessment
You need to show that you proactively identify risks, analyze them, and react to change.
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Criteria |
What it covers |
What this means for you |
|
CC3.1 |
Risk identification and clear objectives |
You define security objectives clearly enough to assess risks against them. |
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CC3.2 |
Risk identification and analysis |
You assess internal/external risks, including vendor and technical risks. |
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CC3.3 |
Fraud risk assessment |
You consider scenarios such as privilege misuse or data manipulation. |
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CC3.4 |
Change assessment |
You evaluate business, technology, and regulatory changes that could affect controls. |
CC4: Monitoring Controls
You need to show that you regularly check whether controls are working, and fix what isn’t.
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Criteria |
What it covers |
What this means for you |
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CC4.1 |
Control, monitoring, and evaluation |
Ongoing or separate evaluations confirm controls are present and functioning. |
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CC4.2 |
Control deficiency management |
You detect, track, escalate, and remediate control gaps quickly. |
CC5: Control Activities
You need to show that you’ve selected the proper controls, built them into operations, and documented how they run.
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Criteria |
What it covers |
What this means for you |
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CC5.1 |
Control activity selection and development |
Controls reduce risks to acceptable levels. |
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CC5.2 |
General IT controls |
You have baseline IT/security controls supporting everything else. |
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CC5.3 |
Policy implementation |
Policies and procedures are current and actually followed. |
CC6 : Logical & Physical Access Controls
Here, you need to show that only the right people can access the right systems, and access is removed fast when no longer needed. Key expectations include:
- MFA and strong authentication
- Controlled user provisioning and lifecycle management
- Periodic access reviews
- Restricted physical access to facilities/media
- Boundary protections (firewalls, IDS/IPS, segmentation)
- Encryption in transit and at rest
- Malware prevention and detection
CC7: System Operations
You need to show that you monitor systems, detect security events, respond quickly, and recover cleanly. Auditors expect configuration and vulnerability tracking, centralized logging and alerting, a tested incident response process, root-cause analysis, and continuous improvement and recovery procedures that restore normal operations.
CC8: Change Management
What you need to show: changes to code, infrastructure, or data follow a controlled, approved, and tested process. This includes change approvals, testing, rollbacks, and SDLC discipline and environment separation.
CC9: Risk Mitigation
What you need to show: you can survive disruptions and manage vendor risk across the relationship. Auditors look for business continuity and disaster recovery planning and testing, backups, and evidence of restoration.
If your product depends on subservice providers (cloud, payments, comms, etc.), your vendor’s control matters a lot here.
2. Availability
Availability is about keeping your service reliably accessible at the level you promise customers. SOC 2 doesn’t force a specific uptime target. Instead, you must show that your controls are strong enough to meet your own SLA and reliability commitments.
It consists of three criteria:
- Availability Commitments (A1.1): You define availability objectives (like uptime/SLAs) and put controls in place to meet them.
- Monitoring & Incident Handling(A1.2 ): You monitor availability, detect issues fast, respond to incidents, and restore service.
- Business Continuity & Recovery (A1.3): You maintain tested backups, DR/BCP plans, and recovery procedures to minimize downtime.
3. Confidentiality
Confidentiality applies to sensitive business information that must be shared, but only in a controlled manner. This includes customer IP, financial data, contracts, and protected datasets. The goal isn’t to lock the data away forever; it’s to ensure it’s accessed and disclosed only as intended.
To meet Confidentiality requirements, you must:
- Identify & Protect Confidential Data (C1.1): You classify confidential info and restrict access/disclosure to authorized users only.
- Retain & Dispose Securely (C1.2): You define retention rules and securely delete/destroy confidential data when no longer needed.
4. Processing Integrity
Processing Integrity checks whether your system does what you say it does, consistently and correctly. If customers rely on your service for transactions, workflows, calculations, or automated outputs, this criterion matters.
To meet Processing Integrity requirements, you need to:
- Define Processing Objectives (PI1.1): Document processing goals, data definitions, and service specifications to ensure clarity and consistency in your processes.
- Control Inputs (PI1.2): Implement controls to ensure inputs are complete, accurate, and authorized before processing.
- Control Processing (PI1.3): Use policies and procedures to ensure that the processing remains valid, accurate, and aligned with your defined objectives.
- Deliver Accurate Outputs (PI1.4): Ensure that outputs are produced entirely, accurately, and on time according to the agreed-upon specifications.
- Store Inputs/Outputs Properly (PI1.5): Safely store inputs, items-in-processing, and outputs, ensuring they are accurate and retained promptly.
5. Privacy
Privacy applies to personal data (PII) and sensitive information because it relates to an individual. It’s different from confidentiality, which can cover sensitive business data, while privacy concerns only personal information.
To meet Privacy requirements, you need to address the following categories:
- Management: You must establish how you manage your privacy program and assign responsibilities for privacy compliance within the organization.
- Notice: You need to inform individuals about your privacy practices and how their personal data will be used, ensuring transparency.
- Choice & Consent: You should have a process for obtaining consent from individuals and allowing them to make choices regarding the collection and use of their personal data.
- Collection: You must collect personal data lawfully and limit its collection to only what’s necessary for your business operations.
- Use, Retention & Disposal: You must ensure that data is used only for its stated purpose, retained for an appropriate period, and securely disposed of once it is no longer needed.
- Access: Individuals must be able to access, review, and update their personal data held by your organization.
- Disclosure to Third Parties: You need to control and monitor the sharing of personal data with third parties, ensuring it aligns with the privacy policies.
- Security: You must implement measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access or disclosure.
- Quality: Ensure the accuracy, completeness, and relevance of personal data throughout its lifecycle.
- Monitoring & Enforcement: You must have a process to monitor compliance, address privacy inquiries, and enforce your privacy practices effectively.
Why the Right SOC 2 Auditor Makes a Difference in Your Compliance Process?
A SOC 2 auditor is a licensed, independent CPA firm authorized to perform SOC audits under the AICPA framework. Their job is to review your systems, processes, and controls and determine whether you meet the SOC 2 criteria.
This includes:
- Evaluating your internal controls related to security, availability, confidentiality, etc.
- Reviewing documentation, system logs, policies, and processes.
- Testing the effectiveness of controls (especially for Type II audits).
- Issuing the final SOC 2 report, which clients, partners, and stakeholders use to verify your compliance.
Auditors don’t just verify if policies exist; they look at how consistently your team applies them in day-to-day operations.
How Decrypt Compliance Helps You Achieve SOC 2 Compliance Faster?
SOC 2 compliance doesn’t have to slow down your business. Many companies face delays because they’re unsure where to start, what evidence to gather, or how to prepare for an audit without disrupting operations. Decrypt Compliance removes that uncertainty, providing clear guidance from day one and eliminating the guesswork that causes delays.
As a tech-first audit and compliance firm, we specialize in helping startups and growing teams achieve SOC 2 compliance quickly and accurately, with a deep understanding of how modern companies operate.
Decrypt Compliance keeps your certification journey smooth, efficient, and audit-ready.
