Inventory Controls for SOC 2 Compliance

For IT organizations striving to efficiently and predictably complete their SOC 2 audit, a robust approach to inventory management is indispensable. Unfortunately, modern enterprise environments, characterized by hybrid and remote work, cloud services, and mobile technologies, have added layers of complexity to maintaining accurate inventory controls and good technology data hygiene.

Data Silos

Enterprises use 11+ tools/ databases for audits and 40% have accuracy issues due to conflicting data from different tools¹

Data Accuracy

46% of organizations experienced considerable increases in audit delays and costs due to inaccurate asset data²

Data Consolidation

51% of IT professionals say that data synchronization across systems and applications is a significant challenge¹

Ensure SOC 2 Compliance through Rigorous Inventory Controls

Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) solutions provide an integrated platform to manage and monitor your complete technology landscape. This proactive approach ensures accurate inventory controls and IT workflow automation to help comply with SOC 2 as well as other industry standards/frameworks, while also improving your overall security posture.

“Oomnitza has empowered us to maintain continuous IT compliance with SOC 2 and CIS frameworks, while automating complex IT processes — all courtesy of its powerful and intuitive workflow engine. Additionally, its comprehensive aggregation of technology asset data has bolstered our position as a trusted partner to key stakeholders, including our security team.”

Improve technology data hygiene and maintain accurate inventory controls for hardware, software and cloud assets for SOC 2 with Oomnitza. Ensure continuous compliance with regulatory mandates and automate audit preparation processes.

improvement in audit accuracy
and completeness

Using Oomnitza, we're able to provide real-time updates on what we have installed, which is a core part of our compliance and certification efforts.

Nemi George
VP, Information Security Officer & IT Operations
Pacific Dental Services

reduction in audit
preparation time

The Importance of Accurate Inventory Controls

Compliance with Systems and Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) is paramount for organizations and service providers that process, transmit, or store any kind of customer data in the cloud. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) developed the SOC 2 security framework to specify how organizations should protect customer data from unauthorized access, security incidents, and other vulnerabilities.

While no two SOC 2 audits are the same, it is designed to provide auditors with guidance for evaluating the operating effectiveness of an organization’s security controls. SOC 2 defines requirements to manage customer data based on five Trust Services Criteria.

Whether managing threats and vulnerabilities, incident response, endpoint security, change control, secure offboarding or business continuity, accurate inventory controls lay the foundation for security policies and procedures that can help your company scale securely.

Unfortunately, the adoption of hybrid and remote work, cloud services and applications, and mobile technologies, has complicated the task of tracking all technology assets and maintaining accurate inventory data. 55% of organizations have less than 75% asset coverage with inconsistent context such as ownership, location, security and lifecycle state3.

Failure to maintain proper inventory controls can make it more challenging to pass SOC 2 audits and cause operational disruptions, reputational damage and erode trust between service providers and their customers.

Challenges

Keeping up with the fast pace of adoption of diverse user and field devices, SaaS apps and cloud services
Tracking and managing assets across remote workforce and growing number of locations
Resource and cost overruns in obtaining and compiling technology inventory data
Friction between IT and GRC teams due to poor inventory management and inaccurate compliance reporting

The Challenges of Modern Enterprise Environments

Traditional IT Asset Management (ITAM) and CMDB-based solutions usually fall short in addressing dynamic technology environments. 54% of organizations find the implementation of CMDB tools complex, labor intensive and time consuming. And 75% of CMDB initiatives fail due to inadequate focus on data accuracy, process standardization, and staff skills.

Often, IT teams resort to manually pulling information from multiple sources, aggregating it painstakingly via spreadsheets, and contacting users to reconcile duplicate entries or populate gaps.

No wonder, almost 50% of enterprises face considerable audit delays, resource shortages and cost overruns to complete technology audits due to siloed inventories, poor data hygiene and inadequate process automation². This impedes adherence with security and compliance controls.

Streamline Inventory Controls and Technology Audits

To ensure efficiency, timeliness and predictability in completing SOC 2 audits, you need to embrace improvements in tools, processes and automation.

ETM solutions address the needs of today’s dynamic technology environments, overcoming the limitations of traditional ITAM and CMDB solutions by providing:

Centralized inventory of all technology assets by leveraging existing tools and installed agents for comprehensive coverage, ensuring no asset goes untracked.
Low-code/no-code workflows and pre-packaged workflow applications that are easily configured for your needs, to assess compliance, remediate issues and automate audit preparation tasks.
Connector integrations with 160+ IT, security and business systems to discover, aggregate, normalize and enrich technology data for single-source audit data.
Powerful business intelligence, notifications and reporting to keep stakeholders informed and provide evidence for auditors to demonstrate compliance.

Benefits

Single system for tracking all technology assets across hardware, software and cloud services
Better audit accuracy, efficiency and timeliness with automated workflows to streamline audit preparation tasks
Confidence in inventory controls and compliance policies being met
Cost savings by reducing manual effort, human error and the need for resource intensive IT projects
Reduced risk of audit fines and failures
Improved alignment and collaboration between IT and GRC teams

ESG Research Report: 2022 Security Hygiene and Posture Management
Oomnitza Snapshot Survey: IT Compliance and Technology Audits
Cybersecurity Insiders 2021 Attack Surface Management report