SOC 2 (system and organisation controls 2)
Build buyer confidence with SOC 2
We work alongside your team to design proportionate controls, build the evidence and manage the path to audit — giving buyers the assurance they need while keeping the programme practical for your business.
SOC 2 is the standard buyers expect, before they trust your business
SOC 2 is an auditing framework and reporting standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) that evaluates how organisations protect customer data. It gives buyers independent evidence that your security controls are properly designed and operating as intended — helping their teams assess your security, protect sensitive data, and move through due diligence with greater confidence.
We don’t sell a platform, and we don’t sell a checklist
We take the lead, working alongside your team, and doing the hands-on work across the whole programme. The evidence trail gets built as a by-product of controls that are actually well designed, so what you hand a buyer is a report they’ll trust, not a dashboard that collapses on first contact.
Built for technical, fast moving teams
We started out supporting remote, Mac-based teams and grew into a security-first practice. It’s exactly the kind of company that needs SOC 2 — so we get how you work, and we keep the process light.
Embedded and agile
We run workstreams in parallel, jump between them, and converge at key points to compress the timeline. We’re in the room doing the work and making life easier for your engineers. We deliver so much more than just the end report.
Proportionate by design
We match the programme to your actual risk — enough to earn your buyers’ confidence, without slowing your team down. It grows as your business does.
WHAT TO AVOID
Typical routes leave you doing the hard work.
SOC 2 tools, advisers and auditors all have a role to play. The problem comes when you expect one of them to own the whole journey. Here’s what to avoid:
Relying on a platform that doesn’t fit you
Tools like Vanta, Drata and Secureframe are great at automating evidence collection. But they can’t decide which controls are right for your business or design how they should work in practice.
Getting generic advice you still have to implement
Generic consultancy can give you the checklist, policies and direction. But if your team is left to turn that advice into working controls and produce the evidence, you’re still carrying most of the workload. Look for hands-on support that gets the work done with you.
Shortcutting the audit just to tick a box
A low-friction audit might get you a report quickly, but the real test comes when a buyer’s security team reviews it. Choose an auditor whose work will stand up to scrutiny and carry credibility with the customers you’re trying to win.
“It’s a tremendous thing not to worry. When I hand a project over to LeftBrain, I know it will just get done. There is so much value in that level of trust.”
HOW WE WORK
Four pillars, run in parallel
Platforms collect evidence. Advisers provide direction. Auditors test what’s in place. We lead the work that connects it all — mapping backwards from the audit and converging at key points, so the demands on your team stay proportionate.
Systems and commitment
Who you are, what you do, what you promise clients, and how the product is built. Captured through stakeholder interviews and data-flow discovery, and mapped against the SOC 2 Description Criteria.
Control environment
Governance and risk management: a business impact analysis, an asset register covering business, IT and product risk, and a proper risk assessment and treatment process.
Operational controls
IT controls — identity, MFA/SSO, device management, endpoint detection — are often largely in place already, so the work is documenting and evidencing them. Product controls cover your secure development lifecycle: dependency scanning, branch reviews, static analysis. We advise on these; your engineers keep the keys.
Assurance programme and audit
The thread that ties the other three together. We build the evidence trail as we go, mapping every control to how it will be proven operating effectively when the audit window opens.
“ISO 27001 and SOC 2 specialists LeftBrain, pair senior expertise with the execution capacity and ongoing operational care to carry the work through and keep it standing well beyond the certificate.”
FeatureD Blog
SOC 2 vs. ISO 27001: what’s the difference?
SOC 2 and ISO 27001 overlap, but they do very different jobs. LeftBrain’s CEO Charlie Naughton-Rumbo explains how they differ, where they’re similar, and how to choose.
FAQs
SOC 2 is an auditing framework developed by the AICPA that assesses how organisations protect customer data. It provides independent assurance that your security controls are appropriately designed and operating effectively.
A Type 1 report assesses whether your controls are suitably designed at a specific point in time. It can provide an effective first step towards SOC 2 assurance while your organisation builds the operating history required for Type 2.
A Type 2 report assesses both the design and operating effectiveness of those controls over a defined review period. It provides a greater level of assurance and is typically the report expected by US enterprise buyers when requesting SOC 2.
No. SOC 2 looks for architectural decision records: a breadcrumb trail showing that when you switched database, region or cache layer, you assessed the risk and closed it out. It’s about the discipline of justifying decisions as you make them, not freezing your stack until the audit’s done.
We recommend trusted firms based on your business, buyer expectations and reporting requirements — from established, widely recognised providers to specialist firms. Every recommendation is made with the quality, credibility and long-term value of your SOC 2 report in mind.
Your clients, not your auditor. The goal throughout is making a buyer’s security team comfortable onboarding you — so we build every control and every section of evidence with that reader in mind.
Ready when you are.
Talk through your scope with the team and understand where you are today, what your buyers expect, and the most practical route to a SOC 2 report that stands up to scrutiny.
