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It’s the beginning of a crowd-sourced effort to put some basic guidelines in place to evaluate SOC 2 report quality. The goal is to develop some generally-accepted signals that any GRC / TPRM practitioner can easily understand and apply as they’re evaluating a SOC 2 report.
Below is a growing, evolving and community-defined set of signals practitioners can use to evaluate the underlying quality and trustworthiness of a SOC 2 report.
| Signal | Why It Matters | What You Can Do With It |
|---|---|---|
| Category 1: Auditor & Platform | ||
| CPA firm registration, credentials, and Peer Review status | The auditor must be a registered CPA firm enrolled in the AICPA Peer Review Program. Individual CPAs signing without firm affiliation or unregistered firms indicate the audit may not be legitimate or subject to proper oversight. | Look at the bottom of Section 1 for the firm name and signature. Verify registration at nasba.org (state board) and aicpa.org (peer review). If you can't confirm registration, reject the report and request one from a properly credentialed firm. |
| Platform branding dominance | Heavy branding from a GRC platform (not the auditor or audited company) throughout the report suggests the platform auto-generated content without sufficient independent auditor customization or judgment. | Scan the full report for logos and branding. Only the auditor's firm and audited company should be featured. If a compliance platform's branding exists, increase scrutiny on test procedures and consider whether the audit included genuine independent verification versus automated report generation. |
| Auditor firm reputation | Some firms are known in the industry for cutting corners, racing to the bottom on price, or producing template-heavy reports. Others are known for rigorous, thoughtful audits. Reputation signals likely quality. | Search the firm name on G2, Gartner Peer Insights, or LinkedIn for reviews and discussions. Ask your TPRM network if anyone has experience with this auditor. If you find patterns of quality concerns, factor this into your assessment and ask for more supplemental evidence. |
| Category 2: Report Quality | ||
| Required opinion paragraph structure (Section 1) | AICPA standards mandate specific paragraphs: "Scope," "Opinion," and for Type 2, "Description of Tests of Controls." Missing or incorrect paragraphs indicate the auditor doesn't know standards or took shortcuts. | Scan Section 1 for labeled paragraphs. For Type 2, verify there's a paragraph referencing tests in Section 4. Check that the Opinion clearly states whether controls were suitably designed and operating effectively. Missing or generic language is a structural red flag - document and escalate before accepting. |
| Test procedure detail and specificity (Section 4) | Vague test descriptions like "reviewed evidence" or “inspected evidence” tell you nothing about what was actually examined. Look for testing descriptions that indicate the test itself was reperformed or observed. Specific descriptions like "inspected 35 quarterly access reviews across the period and verified manager approval and timely removal" demonstrate more testing rigor. | Pick 5-7 controls critical to your use case and read their test procedures line by line. Look for: what evidence was examined, how many samples, from what time periods, what specifically was verified. If procedures are interchangeable boilerplate, flag these controls and request direct evidence from the vendor. |
| Sample sizes and testing distribution (Section 4) | Testing 5 items once at period-start for a daily control provides weak assurance. Testing 40 items distributed across 12 months provides stronger confidence. Sample methodology reveals thoroughness of effectiveness verification. | For your critical controls, count the samples and check timing. For technical controls (MFA, encryption), look for testing of configuration and system-generated evidence. For periodic controls (quarterly reviews), verify all instances were tested. Small samples (5-10) or period-end clustering is a limitation - note it and consider direct verification. |
| System Description specificity (Section 3) | Section 3 should name actual products, technology stack components, infrastructure providers, and organizational structure. Generic buzzwords that could describe any company suggest the auditor didn't engage with the real environment. | Look for specific details: AWS/Azure/GCP, named SaaS tools, data center locations, organizational charts, architecture diagrams. If it reads like marketing copy you could paste to any company, the auditor likely didn't dig in. Cross-reference against what you know about the vendor's actual tech stack. |
| Control description clarity (Section 4) | Vague controls like "Management maintains security" don't tell you what's actually happening. Clear controls specify what happens, who does it, how often, and what makes it effective. Poorly designed controls may miss one or some of these elements. | Read control descriptions for specificity. Good: "Security team reviews production access quarterly, validates business justification with managers, removes unjustified access within 24 hours." Bad: "Access is reviewed periodically." If controls are consistently vague, you can't assess their relevance - request the vendor's actual control documentation. |
| Control-to-criteria mapping logic (Section 4) | Each control maps to Trust Services Criteria (like CC6.1 for logical access). Illogical mappings (like "annual meetings" mapped to technical access controls) suggest the auditor didn't think critically about what controls actually accomplish. | Spot-check 10 control mappings. Ask: does this control logically address this criterion? If technical controls are mapped to wrong categories or soft controls are used for hard technical requirements, the scoping wasn't thoughtful. Document questionable mappings and probe whether those areas are well-designed. |
| Management's Assertion completeness (Section 1 or standalone) | Management must formally assert their system description is accurate, controls are suitably designed, and (Type 2) operating effectively. Missing or incomplete assertions mean management hasn't taken responsibility for their control environment per AICPA standards. | Find Management's Assertion in Section 1 or as a separate section. Verify it includes all required elements and is signed by company leadership. If missing, incomplete, or unsigned, the report doesn't meet basic standards - request a complete version before proceeding with your assessment. |
If you want to help develop this rubric and potentially adopt something like this for your GRC program, that’s great! Share your feedback on this and join the SOC 2 Quality Guild Slack group.
Copyright © 2026 SOC 2 Quality Guild. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Senior Security Consultant
