IT Audit & Compliance Blog

Imagine your mid-sized firm has just received an exhaustive 200-question security audit from its largest enterprise client, coupled with a Board of Directors suddenly demanding a formal policy on “AI Safety.” Without a dedicated security leader, these high-stakes requests often land on the desk of an already overstretched IT Director, leaving your organization reactive, vulnerable, [...]

The requirement for cloud security audits for applications and infrastructure running within cloud environments has, at this point, become second nature to the industry. It is often a milestone needed to raise funding or in the expansion of clients. This article will define cloud compliance audits, outline the objectives and scope of a cloud audit, [...]

Shadow AI—the use of AI-powered tools by company personnel without IT approval—can create SOC 2 audit gaps because it introduces unvetted third-party services into the system, may send confidential data outside governed channels, and bypasses the change management, access control, and vendor oversight processes that auditors examine. This article explains what shadow AI is, how [...]

The Department of Defense (DoD) has restructured its supply chain cybersecurity requirements, signaling a shift from self-attestation to verified compliance. For organizations within the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), navigating this transition is no longer optional. The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program is the definitive framework for this new era. This CMMC compliance guide helps [...]

Conversations across the federal cloud security ecosystem have been oscillating between two narratives: one, that it is maturing, and another, that it is weakening. In reality, maturation is occurring in motion and transition in motion inevitably produces some ambiguity. For Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and their Cloud Service Offerings (CSOs), the current environment across the [...]

The auditing world used to be, well, boring. It was the land of beige walls, green eyeshades, and partners who stayed at the same firm for 40 years before retiring with a gold watch and a modest pension. It was built on the “partnership model”—a slow, steady, and independent way of doing business. In this [...]

In a recent Linford & Co. article, Partner Richard Rieben illuminated some of the growing problems with the SOC 2 assurance – particularly mentioning check-the-box audits, the lack of quality inherent in bargain-basement assessments, and threats to independence. These are all problems that go largely unchecked due to the lack of oversight from a governing [...]

Your firm already has an ISO/IEC 27001 certificate and is considering adding the certificate offered by Cloud Security Alliance, Security Trust and Assurance Registry (CSA STAR) for ISO/IEC 27001 because it feels that opportunities to gain new clients are being lost without having the CSA STAR certificate, and to provide an additional layer of comfort [...]

“There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — [...]

If you are reading this post, chances are you’ve recently learned that your company needs a SOC 2 report (or a SOC 1 report). Your first thought was probably, “What is a SOC 2?” Which was quickly followed by “How much is this going to cost?” This is a perfectly normal and reasonable question to [...]