Soc 2 Compliance Requirements Checklist

SOP-SEC-SOC2-001: SOC 2 Compliance Lifecycle Management

1. Document Control Block

2. Executive Summary & Scope

This document defines the operational workflow required to achieve and maintain SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls) Type II compliance. The scope encompasses the Common Criteria (Trust Services Criteria: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy). This procedure is mandatory for all personnel handling production data at Template Registry.

3. Prerequisites & Tool Requirements

• Infrastructure: AWS/GCP/Azure production environment with logging enabled.
• Compliance Suite: Vanta, Drata, or comparable continuous monitoring platform.
• Access Management: Okta/Auth0 (IdP) with mandatory MFA.
• Documentation: Read/Write access to internal Confluence security repository.
• Encryption: AES-256 (at rest) and TLS 1.3 (in transit).

4. Roles & Responsibilities (RACI Matrix)

5. Step-by-Step Operational Procedure

Phase I: Preparation & Scoping

• Define the System Description (boundaries of the cloud environment and sub-processors).
• Conduct a Gap Analysis against current internal controls.
• Map all Trust Services Criteria (TSC) to internal technical controls.

Phase II: Control Implementation

• Access Control: Enforce Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) and Just-in-Time (JIT) access.
• Change Management: Implement mandatory Peer Review (Pull Request) requirements for all code merged to production.
• Incident Response: Execute quarterly tabletop exercises and document remediation timelines.
• Vulnerability Management: Perform monthly automated scans and annual third-party penetration testing.

Phase III: Audit Evidence Collection

• Extract User Access Reviews (UAR) for all production systems.
• Collect evidence of employee onboarding/offboarding logs (HR).
• Generate system configuration snapshots to verify encryption and logging status.
• Aggregate all automated monitoring alerts from the Compliance Platform.

6. Quality Assurance & Verification Criteria

• Acceptance Benchmark: Zero "Critical" or "High" vulnerabilities outstanding for >30 days.
• Logging Integrity: 100% of production administrative actions must have a corresponding immutable audit log entry.
• Audit Trail: All system changes must link a ticket (Jira/Linear) to a commit hash and a peer review approval.
• Tolerance Threshold: 0% tolerance for non-compliance regarding MFA enforcement on production infrastructure.

7. Practical Troubleshooting Scenarios

Scenario A: Unauthorized Access Detection (MFA Bypass Attempt)

• Indicator: Multiple failed MFA prompts followed by successful login from an anomalous IP.
• Corrective Action:
  1. Immediate suspension of user credentials via IdP.
  2. Incident Response (IR) team to trigger "Containment Phase" (kill active sessions).
  3. Mandatory password reset and security interview before account restoration.

Scenario B: Missing Audit Logs for Production Changes

• Indicator: Deployment detected in Git history without a corresponding Ticket reference or Peer Review.
• Corrective Action:
  1. Automated rollback to the last verified stable state.
  2. "Post-Mortem" meeting within 24 hours to identify process breakdown.
  3. Document as a "Control Exception" until the root cause (e.g., CI/CD pipeline bug) is patched.

Julian Vance Chief Operations Architect Template Registry