Test once, report many: Improve your security and compliance posture with less effort

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. BARR Advisory, which has offices in Kansas City, is a cloud-based security and compliance solutions provider, specializing in cybersecurity, is a financial partner of Startland News.

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Achieving compliance against leading cybersecurity frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HITRUST can be a resource-intensive process, but it doesn’t have to be. By leveraging a “test once, report many” approach, organizations aiming to grow and mature their cybersecurity programs can streamline their efforts to achieve compliance against multiple standards without duplicating work. 

Let’s break down how an integrated approach can reduce redundancies in the compliance process, allowing you to spend less time on audits and more time driving your business forward. 

Cybersecurity compliance frameworks 101 

For cloud service providers across industries, navigating the complexities of cybersecurity compliance often means juggling multiple frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI DSS, and CSA STAR. While each of these frameworks has its own set of requirements, they also share many common elements and controls, including those related to risk management, incident response, and continuous monitoring: 

• SOC 2: System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 reports were developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) to assess a service organization’s controls related to the five trust service criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. SOC 2 shares commonalities with ISO 27001 and HITRUST in areas like access control, data protection, and security incident response. 
• ISO 27001: ISO/IEC 27001 is an international standard that outlines the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS). ISO 27001 overlaps with SOC 2, HITRUST, and PCI DSS with many of its requirements for risk management, asset management, and incident management. 
• HIPAA security rule: This section of the U.S. federal regulation governing healthcare organizations sets national standards for the protection of electronic protected health information (ePHI). It requires organizations handling ePHI to implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. The HIPAA Security Rule aligns with HITRUST, which incorporates HIPAA requirements, and overlaps with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 in terms of data protection and access controls. 
• HITRUST: The HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) harmonizes various regulatory requirements and standards, including HIPAA, SOC 2, and ISO 27001, into a single framework for managing information security and risk. By integrating the controls from these frameworks, HITRUST serves as a comprehensive approach to risk management for organizations in a variety of highly regulated industries. 
• PCI DSS: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of foundational security standards designed to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. PCI DSS shares its focus on network security, encryption, and vulnerability management with frameworks like ISO 27001 and HITRUST.
• CSA STAR: The Cloud Security Alliance Security, Trust & Assurance (CSA STAR) program assesses the security of cloud service providers based on the CSA’s Cloud Controls Matrix. CSA STAR was designed specifically to overlap with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 for organizations operating in cloud environments like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform. 

Organizations aiming to build more mature compliance programs can leverage the commonalities between standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI DSS, and CSA STAR to make achieving and maintaining compliance against multiple frameworks more manageable. 

Leveraging overlap for streamlined reporting 

While there is significant overlap between many popular cybersecurity frameworks, different frameworks include controls that are similar, but not identical. This can lead to redundancy in efforts and increased administrative burden. However, with the right approach, these challenges can be managed effectively. This is where automation tools come into play, offering a streamlined, efficient solution to simplify the compliance process. 

Automation tools empower organizations with more efficiency, better accuracy, and improved scalability in their compliance programs. Here are just a few ways that automation tools can help your team members optimize their efforts to achieve compliance against multiple frameworks at once: 

• Unified control mapping: One of the most significant advantages of automation tools is their ability to map controls across multiple frameworks, minimizing the duplication of effort. For example, access control requirements are a common element in SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HITRUST. Automation can identify these overlaps and streamline the control implementation process, allowing your organization to address multiple standards with a single set of controls. 
• Real-time monitoring: Automation tools enable your organization to stay compliant by continuously monitoring your environment for cybersecurity threats and alerting you when issues arise that could impact your ongoing compliance. Implementing automation is a proactive approach that ensures compliance is not just a one-time achievement for your organization, but an ongoing priority. Real-time monitoring reduces the manual effort required to maintain compliance and helps your organization better prepare for new changes in regulatory requirements. 
• Streamlined reporting and documentation: Automation tools can also simplify the audit process by generating comprehensive reports and maintaining detailed documentation that satisfies auditors’ requirements. This capability not only saves your team time, but also reduces the risk of errors, ensuring that your compliance program is always audit-ready. 

Incorporating automation into your compliance strategy can significantly reduce the complexity of managing multiple frameworks, allowing your organization to focus on what matters most—driving business growth. This is why it’s so important to choose an auditing firm like BARR Advisory that is accredited to perform audits against a wide range of compliance standards. Even if you’re just

starting out with a SOC 2 examination, your auditing firm should be able to grow with you and your compliance program, leveraging automation to save you time and resources along the way. 

‘Test Once, Report Many’: BARR’s unique approach 

When it comes to cybersecurity compliance, efficiency is key. At BARR Advisory, we use a “test once, report many” approach to streamline the compliance process, making it easier for organizations to achieve and maintain certifications across multiple frameworks. With a dedicated certification body, 

we can offer ISO 27001 certifications, SOC 2 reports, HITRUST certifications, HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance reports, CSA STAR attestations, and more through a coordinated audit process. 

A coordinated audit approach is particularly beneficial for organizations aiming to comply with multiple frameworks simultaneously. For instance, if your organization has already achieved a HITRUST certification, the groundwork is largely in place for ISO 27001 certification. HITRUST CSF is built on a foundation that includes ISO 27001, which means many of the controls and requirements already overlap. With assessment data readily available in the MyCSF portal, auditors can efficiently map existing controls to ISO 27001 requirements, saving time and eliminating redundancies. 

What’s more, since ISO 27001 auditors cannot provide guidance on how to fix issues or mitigate gaps, HITRUST can serve as a risk assessment for the ISO 27001 audit, allowing you to address potential nonconformities before they become issues in an ISO 27001 audit. The result is a more seamless compliance experience, with fewer surprises during the certification process. 

HITRUST can also satisfy requirements for other assessments, like SOC 2. The AICPA’s trust service criteria, which underpin SOC 2, align closely with HITRUST CSF criteria. This alignment allows BARR to offer a collaborative reporting model, issuing both SOC 2 reports and HITRUST certifications in a unified process. The benefits are clear: reduced time, effort, and resources required to maintain compliance across multiple standards. 

Key takeaways 

Ultimately, organizations that choose to leverage one framework to achieve compliance with another reap numerous benefits. This approach not only demonstrates a strong commitment to security and compliance, but also allows organizations to quickly pivot in response to evolving regulations and standards. By reducing the resources required to manage multiple audits, your team can focus on improving your overall security posture and adding value for customers. 

*ISO 27001 certifications are issued by BARR Certifications, the certification body of BARR Advisory.

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