Section 1
Compliance Strategy & Framework Selection
Build a scalable compliance program foundation
- Map business requirements to relevant compliance frameworks
- Identify overlapping controls across frameworks (SOC 2 + ISO 27001)
- Create a unified control framework to avoid duplicate work
- Prioritize controls based on risk and business impact
- Define ownership and accountability for each control
- Establish compliance metrics and KPIs for tracking
- Document scope boundaries and system inventories
Section 2
Continuous Compliance Monitoring
Move from point-in-time to continuous compliance
- Implement automated control testing on a continuous basis
- Deploy agents for real-time configuration monitoring
- Use CIS Benchmarks as baseline for technical controls
- Alert on control failures within minutes, not months
- Track compliance posture with real-time dashboards
- Implement drift detection for infrastructure changes
- Automate remediation for common misconfigurations
Section 3
Automated Evidence Collection
Streamline audit evidence gathering
- Integrate with cloud providers for automatic evidence collection
- Pull access review data from identity providers automatically
- Capture configuration snapshots as evidence artifacts
- Auto-generate evidence from CI/CD pipeline logs
- Store evidence with immutable timestamps and hashes
- Map evidence to specific control requirements
- Maintain evidence retention per regulatory requirements
Section 4
Access Control & Identity Governance
Automate access reviews and identity controls
- Implement automated user access reviews (quarterly at minimum)
- Track and alert on privilege escalation events
- Automate onboarding/offboarding with identity governance
- Monitor for orphaned accounts and excessive permissions
- Enforce least privilege with automated policy recommendations
- Document access approval workflows for audit evidence
- Implement just-in-time access for privileged operations
Section 5
Audit Preparation & Management
Reduce audit prep time and improve outcomes
- Maintain audit-ready documentation year-round
- Use compliance platforms with auditor portals (Vanta, Drata)
- Pre-populate audit requests with automated evidence
- Track audit findings and remediation in a central system
- Conduct internal audits quarterly to catch issues early
- Build relationships with auditors before formal audit
- Document compensating controls for any gaps
Section 6
Framework-Specific Requirements
Key controls for common compliance frameworks
- SOC 2: Focus on Trust Services Criteria (Security, Availability, Confidentiality)
- ISO 27001: Implement Annex A controls with documented ISMS
- PCI-DSS: Protect cardholder data with network segmentation
- HIPAA: Implement PHI safeguards and BAAs with vendors
- GDPR: Enable data subject rights and document lawful basis
- FedRAMP: Meet NIST 800-53 controls for government cloud
- NIST CSF: Organize controls around Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover