Two SOCs: Two Critical Business Functions

Entering the New Year with gratitude and determination brings new lessons and a stronger mindset. Wishing everyone a meaningful and powerful New Year ahead.

For many businesses, the new year brings fresh goals around growth, customer trust, and operational excellence. If securing new enterprise clients or demonstrating your commitment to data protection is on your resolution list, understanding SOC compliance and monitoring is an excellent place to start.

If you’ve ever wondered how companies prove they’re keeping your data safe, SOC compliance is a big part of the answer. SOC monitoring demonstrates an organization’s proactive approach by maintaining 24/7 vigilance to keep business-critical operations safe and functioning smoothly.

What is SOC Compliance?

SOC stands for Service Organization Control. Service organizations need SOC reports to prove they’re safe to work with, it basically builds the trust among customers with business.

These reports are created by independent auditors who examine a company’s internal controls, security measures, and processes. The goal is simple, to verify that a company is doing what it claims to do when it comes to protecting data and maintaining reliable services.

Three Types of SOC Reports

There are three main types of SOC reports, each serving a different purpose:

1. SOC 1 focuses on financial reporting controls. If a company processes payroll, handles billing, or manages any financial transactions that could affect another company’s financial statements, they need SOC 1. For example, a payroll processing company that handles salary payments for thousands of employees would pursue SOC 1 compliance to assure clients their financial data is accurate and secure.
   

2. SOC 2 is all about security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. This is the most common type for technology companies. Cloud storage providers like Dropbox, project management tools like Asana, or customer relationship management platforms like Salesforce typically have SOC 2 reports. When you see a SaaS (Software as a Service) company advertising their security credentials, they’re often talking about SOC 2.
   

3. SOC 3 is basically a simplified, public-friendly version of SOC 2. While SOC 2 reports contain detailed information and are usually confidential, SOC 3 reports can be freely distributed. Companies often display SOC 3 seals on their websites to show customers they’ve been independently verified.
   

Who Needs SOC Compliance?

SOC compliance isn’t for everyone, but it’s essential for certain types of organizations:

1. Service providers that handle data for other companies are the primary candidates. This includes cloud hosting companies, data centers, payment processors, HR and payroll services, and software-as-a-service companies. For instance, if you run a company that stores customer databases for e-commerce businesses, you’d definitely need SOC 2 compliance to prove you’re protecting that data properly.
   

2. Healthcare technology companies that handle patient information need to show they comply with privacy requirements. A telemedicine platform or electronic health records system would pursue SOC 2 to demonstrate they’re protecting sensitive health data.
   

3. Financial services firms like accounting software companies, investment platforms, or lending services need SOC reports to prove their controls are solid. Imagine a company like Stripe, which processes billions of dollars in payments, they need SOC compliance to assure businesses that their payment data is secure.
   

Companies typically pursue SOC compliance when they start landing bigger clients or enterprise customers. Many large organizations won’t even consider a vendor without a current SOC 2 report. It’s become a baseline requirement in many industries.

What is SOC Monitoring?

SOC (Security Operations Centre) monitoring is the ongoing process of ensuring your controls continue to work effectively. SOC monitoring involves continuously tracking your security controls, IT systems, and compliance requirements to ensure everything stays in line with the standards you were audited against. This is the collection of articles on SOC.

What Actually Happens Inside SOC Monitoring?

Inside a SOC, security teams work with advanced tools and processes to keep the organization safe. Key activities include:

• Continuous Log Monitoring: Every login, network request, file access, and system event is tracked and reviewed.
  

• Threat Detection: Systems are continuously scanned for malware, intrusion attempts, unauthorized access, abnormal behavior, and insider threats.
  

• Alerting & Triage:  Alerts are generated by SIEM tools like Splunk, QRadar, ELK, ArcSight etc. Analysts review these alerts to separate real threats from false positives.
  

• Incident Response: When a threat is confirmed, SOC teams take immediate action, isolating systems, blocking malicious IPs, resetting compromised accounts, and preventing damage.
  

• 24×7 Vigilance: Cyber attackers don’t follow business hours, that’s why SOC teams operate round-the-clock to ensure business continuity and security.

Who Needs SOC Monitoring?

While compliance is often a “once a year” audit, monitoring is for anyone who cannot afford even five minutes of downtime or a single leaked record.

• Organizations with high-frequency data: E-commerce sites during peak seasons.
  

• Companies in “high threat” sectors: Banks, government contractors, and energy providers.
  

• Anyone with a SOC 2 Type II report: To maintain this specific type of compliance, you must have monitoring because a Type II audit looks at how well your controls worked over a period of 6 to 12 months.
  

• Fintech & Healthcare: Any startup handling money or medical records.
  

• Fast-growing companies where systems and processes are constantly changing need robust monitoring. If you’re adding new features, onboarding new employees, or scaling infrastructure, monitoring ensures nothing falls through the cracks.