An ISO 27001 certification can help your business stand out. It lets your customers and potential customers know you care about and will protect their information. It can also help you streamline internal processes.

In the popular modern musical Hamilton, the titular character is given an opportunity by George Washington. Hamilton can stay on the front lines of the American Revolution, or he can become the general’s aide-de-camp. It’s a choice between gaining glory amidst the fighting or an office job with an opportunity to influence who would become our first president.

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, we saw 781 data breaches in 2015 that totaled hundreds of millions of stolen records, many of which included personally identifiable information about customers—names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

Have you ever wondered if the ISO 27001 certification is at all similar to a SOC 2 report?  Many organizations today are dealing with multiple needs or demands for various compliance assessments or certifications.  These organizations might wonder, “How can my ISO 27001 certification fit the needs for a SOC 2 report?” and vice versa.  Below we have outlined the similarities and differences between an ISO 27001 certification and a SOC 2 examination.

In the last 12 months, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has made great strides in enhancing their CSA Security, Trust and Assurance Registry (STAR) Program. In brief, the STAR Program is a publicly available registry designed to recognize assurance requirements and maturity levels of cloud service providers (CSPs). Prior to issuing the guidance for STAR Certification and STAR Attestation, a CSP could only perform a self-assessment, which meant completing the Consensus Assessments Initiative questionnaire (CAIQ) and making the responses publicly available on the CSA Register. The CAIQ was completed in several different ways and the content varied from short answers to full-page responses. It was relevant information but not independently validated. This created a path for the STAR Certification and STAR Attestation Programs.

When referring to SSAE16 or SOC 1, what is the difference and how do you use these acronyms appropriately? Simply put, the SSAE No. 16 standard is the attestation standard used to create a SOC 1 branded report. There are several SSAEs (Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements) for various types of reports, number 16 happens to be the one that applies and is used to perform an attestation on a service organization controls likely to impact their customers’ internal controls over financial reporting. The terms are often times used interchangeably because of their relationship; but they are different.

Undoubtedly, the ISO 27001 Certification is recognized globally and revered as one of the highest and most comprehensive certifications an organization can attain. The high esteem that the certification is held is substantiated by the effort and dedication that is required by an organization to attain ISO 27001 certification. As an internationally accepted certification, ISO 27001 represents an organization's ability to effectively manage information security risks with a certified information security management system (ISMS).