SOC 2 Type II
SOC 2 Compliance with CtrlLayer
SOC 2 Type II audits evaluate the operational effectiveness of your security controls over time — typically 6 to 12 months. CtrlLayer continuously enforces and documents the endpoint security controls auditors evaluate, providing the evidence trail needed to demonstrate ongoing compliance rather than point-in-time snapshots. In 2024, 29% of organizations reported SOC 2 audit findings related to insufficient access controls (ISACA).
Security — Common Criteria
Controls related to access management, encryption, system operations, and change management that protect system resources against unauthorized access.
Logical Access Security
The entity implements logical access security software, infrastructure, and architectures to protect against threats.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Application-Scoped Elevation: Privilege grants are scoped to individual applications. Users never receive blanket administrator access. Each grant is cryptographically signed with a JWT token specifying the exact application, user, device, and expiration.
- Zero Standing Privileges: No permanent admin rights exist. Every elevation is just-in-time and automatically expires, eliminating the risk of stale privileged access.
- Agent Security Architecture: The Windows agent runs as a protected system service with anti-tamper mechanisms, named-pipe IPC isolation, and encrypted communication channels.
User Authentication
Prior to issuing system credentials and granting system access, the entity registers and authorizes new users.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Self-Service Onboarding with Verification: New users go through email verification and multi-step onboarding. Every account creation is logged and authorized by a tenant administrator.
- JWT-Based Authentication: Session management uses signed JWT tokens with configurable expiration. No session fixation or replay attacks possible.
- QR-Based Delegation: Third-party technician access uses cryptographic QR codes that bind identity to device to time window. No shared credentials.
Role-Based Access
The entity authorizes, modifies, or removes access to data, software, functions, and other protected resources based on roles.
CtrlLayer Controls
- RBAC+ABAC Policy Engine: Combines role-based access control with attribute-based conditions. Policies can factor in user role, device type, time of day, application risk score, and network context.
- Centralized Policy Management: All access policies are defined, versioned, and managed through the admin console. Every policy change is audited with user attribution.
- Automatic Privilege Expiration: All elevated access grants expire automatically. No manual cleanup required. Expiration timestamps are cryptographically embedded in the grant token.
Threat and Vulnerability Management
The entity implements controls to prevent or detect and act upon the introduction of unauthorized or malicious software.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Security Master Agent: Continuous threat scoring and posture assessment across all managed endpoints. Real-time anomaly detection using behavioral analysis.
- Threat Intelligence Integration: Cross-references endpoint activity against 48,000+ threat intelligence indicators for known-bad IOCs.
- Application Inventory: Automated discovery engine catalogs all installed software. Unknown or unauthorized applications are flagged for review.
- USB Vector Control: Removable media policies prevent introduction of malicious software via USB devices.
Change Management
The entity authorizes, designs, develops, configures, documents, tests, approves, and implements changes to infrastructure and software.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Software Library Management: Approved software list is centrally managed. Changes to the approved list are tracked with full audit trail.
- Windows Update Management: Centralized visibility into Windows update status across the fleet ensures timely patching.
- Policy Version Tracking: Every security policy change is logged with the user who made the change, the previous value, and the new value.
Availability
Controls to ensure the system is available for operation and use as committed or agreed.
Infrastructure Monitoring
The entity uses detection and monitoring procedures to identify changes to configurations that result in new vulnerabilities.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Device Health Monitoring: Agent telemetry engine continuously reports device health metrics including CPU, memory, disk, and security posture to the central console.
- Agent Diagnostics: Self-monitoring capabilities detect agent degradation or tampering, triggering alerts to administrators.
- Configuration Drift Detection: Security Master identifies when device configurations deviate from established baselines, flagging potential availability risks.
Incident Detection and Response
The entity monitors system components and the operation of those components for anomalies indicative of malicious acts.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Blue Team Correlation Engine: Automated event correlation across multiple data sources — authentication events, elevation requests, network connections, USB activity — to identify multi-stage attacks.
- Real-Time Alerting: Configurable severity-based alerting ensures the right people are notified of incidents within seconds of detection.
- Automated Response Actions: Pre-configured playbooks can automatically isolate compromised devices, revoke privileges, or block USB access without human intervention.
Incident Recovery
The entity implements procedures to recover from identified security incidents.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Forensic Timeline: Hash-chain audit logs enable precise reconstruction of incident timelines for root cause analysis and recovery planning.
- Containment Verification: Post-incident compliance checks verify that affected devices have been remediated and restored to compliant baseline.
Processing Integrity
Controls to ensure system processing is complete, valid, accurate, timely, and authorized.
Data Integrity
The entity implements controls to prevent, detect, and correct processing errors.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Hash-Chain Audit Integrity: Every audit log entry includes a cryptographic hash computed from the event data and the previous entry's hash. Any modification to any record breaks the chain, making tampering immediately detectable.
- Signed Elevation Grants: JWT grants include cryptographic signatures verified by the agent before execution. Forged or modified grants are rejected.
- Validation Layer: API request/response DTOs include comprehensive validation, preventing malformed data from entering the system.
Confidentiality
Controls to protect information designated as confidential from unauthorized access.
Confidential Information Protection
The entity identifies and maintains confidential information to meet the entity's objectives related to confidentiality.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Encryption in Transit: All agent-to-server communication uses AES encryption over TLS 1.3. No data is transmitted in plaintext.
- Encryption at Rest: Sensitive configuration data and cached policies on the agent are encrypted using AES with device-specific keys.
- Network Monitoring: Agent monitors all outbound network connections, detecting potential data exfiltration to unauthorized destinations.
- USB Data Loss Prevention: Removable media controls prevent unauthorized copying of confidential data to USB devices. Time-limited exceptions require explicit approval and are fully logged.
- Least Privilege Enforcement: App-scoped elevation ensures users only access resources necessary for their specific task, limiting exposure of confidential data.
Confidential Information Disposal
The entity disposes of confidential information to meet the entity's objectives related to confidentiality.
CtrlLayer Controls
- Grant Expiration: Elevation grants are cryptographically time-bound. After expiration, all associated privilege tokens are invalidated and cannot be reused.
- Session Cleanup: Technician delegation sessions automatically terminate at expiration. All session-specific access is fully revoked.
- Device Decommissioning: Centralized device management allows remote revocation of all credentials and policies from decommissioned endpoints.
SOC 2 Evidence Collection
The most time-consuming part of a SOC 2 audit is evidence collection. CtrlLayer automates the generation of audit evidence, reducing preparation time by weeks.
Access Control Matrix
Exportable report showing every user's role, permissions, and elevation history. Demonstrates least-privilege enforcement over the audit period.
Policy Configuration Export
Complete export of all security policies, including version history, change timestamps, and the administrator who made each change.
Tamper-Proof Audit Logs
Hash-chain verified logs covering the entire audit period. Each entry includes an integrity verification status demonstrating the chain is intact.
Incident Response Records
Complete documentation of detected incidents, automated and manual responses, containment actions, and resolution timelines.
Device Compliance Reports
Continuous compliance posture across all managed endpoints, showing baseline adherence rates over the audit period.
Change Management Trail
Every policy change, software approval, and configuration modification with full attribution and timestamp for change management evidence.
Simplify Your Next SOC 2 Audit
CtrlLayer provides the endpoint controls and evidence that SOC 2 auditors evaluate.
Request a SOC 2 Readiness Assessment