Best Free and Paid Software for SOC 2 Compliance

Data has become an important asset for businesses, as they analyze it to gain valuable insights. However, this collection, storage, and analysis of data also comes with the responsibility to safeguard them. More importantly, businesses have the obligation to prove to their stakeholders that they are taking all possible steps to protect the safety and integrity of the data stored in their servers.

A good way to demonstrate this responsibility is by complying with security-related regulations like SOC 2. Though this is a voluntary compliance framework, it is widely-accepted in the world today. Any organization that complies with SOC 2 can boost its reputation and gain the trust of its stakeholders.

Given the importance and popularity of this framework, let’s explore what SOC 2 is and how you can use different tech platforms to comply with its regulations.

What is SOC 2 Compliance?

System and Organizations Control 2, or SOC 2 in short, is a compliance framework developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). This framework revolves around a set of audit procedures that protect your data. It evaluates the processes and policies surrounding data storage and usage to ensure its safety and integrity.

SOC 2 compliance is built on five policies, called the Trust Services Criteria (TSC). They are:

1. Security – Protects systems and data from unauthorized access.
2. Availability – Ensures systems are available for their intended use.
3. Confidentiality – Keeps confidential information secure.
4. Processing Integrity – Checks if data processing is complete, valid, accurate, and timely.
5. Privacy – Safeguards consumer data and informs consumers about its purpose and how it’s handled.

To achieve SOC 2 compliance, you must undergo an audit that evaluates how your data, systems, and processes fare against the above criteria. This audit is done by an independent third-party auditor, though it is common practice to do internal audits regularly to identify and fix gaps.

SOC 2 reports are not rigid and can be customized to meet your specific requirements or scenarios. Depending on the outcome, the auditor will provide two types of reports. SOC 2 Type I report describes a vendor’s systems and checks if the design meets the TSC principles. On the other hand, SOC 2 Type II report checks the operational effectiveness of your systems.

Complying with these five principles can be difficult, and this is where SOC 2 compliance tools come in handy.

Free SOC 2 Compliance Platforms

There aren’t many free SOC 2 compliance platforms today, and even those that are available, have limited features, making it unsuitable for large organizations. The below tools are a good starting point and can help startups and small businesses to get started on SOC 2 compliance.

Scout Suite

Scout Suite is a multi-cloud security auditing tool that checks the security of different cloud environments. Specifically, it uses the APIs exposed by the cloud providers to gather data and evaluate it for risks. Accordingly, it provides the attack surface area.

Source: GitHub

Key Features

• Supports many popular cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba, Oracle, and more.
• Automates security scanning for cloud configurations.
• Generates reports.
• It runs through Command Line Interface (CLI).

Follow these steps to run Scout Suite.

Prowler

Prowler is another open cloud security tool that evaluates the security of AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes. It continuously monitors how data is stored and used from a security perspective. This platform is also helpful to comply with other standards like NIST, FedRAMP, GXP, and more.

Source: Prowler

Key Features

• Scans cloud environments for security misconfigurations.
• Generates detailed reports with risk categories.
• Extensive controls that can be used for multiple compliance frameworks.
• Offers the option to directly send the findings to AWS Security Hub for centralized management and analytics.

Download from GitHub

For more advanced features and insights, paid tools are a better option.

Paid SOC 2 Compliance Tools

Below are some popular SOC 2 compliance tools that come with extensive features, many customization options, and detailed insights.

Vanta

Vanta is a SOC 2 automation compliance software that offers support across the entire SOC 2 journey, from automated workflows to audits. It even offers vetted auditors who can expedite your compliance process for faster SOC 2 certification.

Source: Vanta

Key Features

• Continuously monitors and tests all controls for compliance.
• Integrates with most common cloud service providers.
• Centralizes organizational security and helps manage policies and documents.
• Remediates issues from failed tests.
• Sends real-time risk alerts and tracking.

Request a demo.

Drata

Drata is another advanced tool that automates many SOC 2 processes to meet the five services criteria. It claims to reduce the audit preparation by 80%, as the required documentation can be created within minutes. Moreover, it also tracks progress and shares the required information with auditors.

Source: Drata

Key Features

• Provides auditor-approved framework templates.
• Offers hands-on support from experts, for both Type I and Type II audits.
• Helps identify, assess, and monitor risks specific to your organization.
• Conducts user access review to increase security and save time.
• Streamlines policy management with 20+ approved policies.

Contact the sales team.

Secureframe

Secureframe simplifies SOC 2 compliance with its AI-powered capabilities. It efficiently manages risks and improves compliance rate, with little time and effort. More importantly, Secureframe makes it easy to showcase your commitment to audits and other stakeholders.

Source: Secureframe

Key Features

• Uses AI for risk and remediation.
• Makes it easy to showcase your security posture to relevant audiences.
• Continuously tracks access to assets and resources.
• Assesses risks and manages failing controls.
• Automates the entire compliance lifecycle.

Request a demo.

AuditBoard

AuditBoard brings together risks, controls, and policies to improve your security posture and achieve SOC 2 compliance. It offers standardized risk templates to score and rank risks, so you can prioritize and address them accordingly. It also centralizes data to create a single source of truth for the entire organization.

Source: AuditBoard

Key Features

• Simplifies risk assessments.
• Exports data and evidence to auditors when required.
• Improves collaboration among teams and stakeholders.
• Automates issue management and provides visibility into open issues for authorized employees.
• Generates audit-ready reports in minutes.

Schedule a demo.

Sprinto

Sprinto is another popular SOC 2 compliance platform that maps risks to controls to speed up the process of achieving compliance. Its adaptive automation helps customize the existing templates and processes to meet your specific requirements. Also, it offers async features like one-on-one consultations.

Source: Sprinto

Key Features

• Runs fully-automated checks to ensure continuous compliance.
• Provides proactive alerting to help you stay on top of risks.
• Centralizes the management of important data and resources.
• Integrates with 200+ platforms.
• Maps asset-level risks and controls for comprehensive visibility.

Schedule a demo

From the above discussion it’s clear that most paid tools come with extensive automation capabilities, templates, customer support, and scalability. These overlapping aspects can make it difficult to select the perfect fit for your organization.

Selecting the Best SOC 2 Compliance Software

Selecting the right SOC 2 compliance depends on many factors like company size, budget, existing security policies, available resources, and the level of required automation. If you’re a startup with limited budgets, you can start with the free tools discussed in this article, though you will have to move to the paid ones as your business grows to establish trust. In some cases, making the shift sooner can help build trust among consumers, investors, and employees.

Some tools like Secureframe offer advanced AI capabilities and can come in handy for organizations with limited resources or those looking to leverage AI to automate processes.  On the other hand, if you need additional help to prepare for audits, consider tools like Sprinto and Vanta that connect you with compliance experts. Lastly, tools like Drata and AuditBoard are highly scalable and can grow with your organization.

Depending on your compliance goals and your current state and capabilities, select a tool that best matches your industry and budget.

Final Thoughts

Overall, SOC 2 is a voluntary compliance framework, but is used by most reputed organizations to build trust among stakeholders. It follows five principles that strengthen data security and privacy, protecting key information from unauthorized access. Given the growing complexity of cybercrimes and the difficult task of protecting data across multiple systems and devices, it helps to have SOC 2 compliance software, as they save time and effort while improving efficiency. In this article, we discussed some free and paid tools that can help you reach your compliance goals.

Read through our pages for more information on these tools.