What are the five trust criteria in AICPA's SOC II Audit?

A Service Organization Control (SOC) II audit is an important tool for businesses that want to ensure their security protocols are up to industry standards. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has established five trust criteria that must be met in order to pass a SOC II audit.

The first trust criteria is security. This criteria ensures that the service organization has implemented effective security controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information processed by the system. This includes access controls, network security, incident management, and data backup and recovery.

The second trust criteria is availability. This criteria ensures that the service organization has implemented controls to ensure the availability of the system, including disaster recovery and incident management procedures. This includes regular backups, disaster recovery testing, and incident response planning.

The third trust criteria is processing integrity. This criteria ensures that the service organization has implemented controls to ensure the processing integrity of the system, including input validation, data validation, and error handling. This includes input validation procedures, error logging and reporting, and data validation checks.

The fourth trust criteria is confidentiality. This criteria ensures that the service organization has implemented controls to ensure the confidentiality of the system, including access controls, network security, and incident management. This includes access controls, network security, incident management, and data backup and recovery.

The fifth trust criteria is privacy. This criteria ensures that the service organization has implemented controls to protect the privacy of the information processed by the system, including data retention and destruction policies, and incident management procedures. This includes data retention and destruction policies, incident management procedures, and incident reporting to regulatory authorities.

By meeting these five trust criteria, a business can demonstrate to customers and regulators that they take cybersecurity seriously and have implemented effective controls to protect sensitive information. It's important to note that while SOC II and ISO 27001 auditing have similarities, SOC II is specific to service organizations and focuses on the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of the systems and data they use to process client data while ISO 27001 is a more general standard that focuses on an overall information security management system (ISMS) and covers a broader range of topics such as risk management, incident management, and legal compliance.

In addition to SOC II and ISO 27001, other common cybersecurity audits for businesses include PCI-DSS for businesses that handle credit card information and HIPAA for businesses in the healthcare industry. It's important for businesses to understand the specific requirements and regulations of their industry and to choose the appropriate audit to ensure they are meeting all necessary security standards.

In summary, AICPA's SOC II Audit is a trust service that provides a report on controls at a service organization relevant to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy that are placed in operation, suitably designed, and operating effectively to meet the criteria. Organizations should consider the SOC II audit if they are a service provider that handles sensitive information and wants to demonstrate their commitment to security to their clients and regulators.