Service Organization Control (SOC) compliance is a voluntary compliance framework created by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) to help financial institutions better manage security, risk and data management. Over time, several different audits and reports based on SOC have emerged, the most popular of which is SOC 2.

The SOC 2 audit process is a comprehensive assessment that demonstrates an organization’s commitment to security and data privacy. Many organizations pick up SOC 2 certification specifically to raise the security profile of their brands and encourage trust from users and clients.

While that seems straightforward, the fact is that SOC 2 can be a long, rigorous and challenging audit that takes months to years to complete. Additionally, once you’ve achieved SOC 2 certification, you must continually demonstrate your continued compliance annually.