Soc 2 Requirements Checklist

Standard Operating Procedure: SOC 2 Requirements Checklist

1. Document Control & Revision History

2. Executive Summary & Scope

Purpose: This document establishes the procedural baseline for achieving and maintaining SOC 2 (Type I/II) compliance. It ensures the operational integrity of the Trust Services Criteria (TSC) across Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy.

Scope: This SOP applies to all information systems, cloud infrastructure, human resources (HR) onboarding/offboarding, and administrative access controls within the enterprise boundary. It is mandatory for all personnel with administrative access to production environments or sensitive data stores.

3. Prerequisites & Tool Requirements

• Software/Tools:
  • Centralized Log Management (e.g., Splunk, ELK, Datadog).
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM) provider (e.g., Okta, Azure AD) with MFA enforcement.
  • Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agent deployed on all corporate assets.
  • Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platform (e.g., Vanta, Drata).
• Certifications: Personnel must complete annual Security Awareness Training (SAT) prior to provisioning access.
• Documentation: Active Risk Assessment Matrix and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) must be version-controlled in the repository.

4. Roles & Responsibilities (RACI Matrix)

5. Step-by-Step Operational Procedure

Phase I: Access Governance & Identity Management

• Verify Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled globally across all SSO applications.
• Audit user access logs to ensure only active employees maintain access; revoke orphaned accounts immediately.
• Confirm "Principle of Least Privilege" (PoLP) is applied to all production-level roles.

Phase II: Infrastructure & Security Hardening

• Validate automated vulnerability scanning (e.g., Nessus, Qualys) is running weekly.
• Ensure all cloud storage buckets are configured with encryption at rest (AES-256).
• Confirm that CI/CD pipelines require peer-reviewed code commits prior to deployment.

Phase III: Monitoring & Incident Response

• Review system audit trails for unauthorized escalation attempts.
• Conduct a tabletop exercise to verify Incident Response (IR) plan efficacy.
• Archive logs in a write-once-read-many (WORM) storage format for forensic integrity.

6. Quality Assurance & Verification Criteria

• Acceptance Benchmarks: 100% of critical patches must be deployed within 14 days of release.
• Audit Checklist:
  • Proof of MFA enforcement on all core infrastructure.
  • Documented evidence of quarterly access reviews (signed by Dept. Heads).
  • Full inventory of hardware assets reconciled against employee list.
• Tolerance Thresholds: Zero tolerance for unencrypted sensitive data at rest or lack of MFA on administrative accounts.

7. Practical Troubleshooting Scenarios

Scenario A: Unauthorized Account detected in Production

• Protocol:
  1. Immediate revocation of SSO credentials.
  2. Revocation of active session tokens (force logout).
  3. Trigger automated IR workflow for forensic log analysis to determine scope of access.
  4. Mandatory rotation of API keys/secrets associated with the account.

Scenario B: Evidence Collection failure (Missing Logs)

• Protocol:
  1. Identify gap duration and system source.
  2. If log loss is >24 hours, declare a security incident.
  3. Determine root cause (e.g., buffer overflow, misconfiguration).
  4. Implement temporary compensating controls (manual audit logs) until system monitoring is restored.
  5. Document root cause in the Compliance GRC portal under "Non-conformity."