Automate Technical Vulnerability Management [SOC 2]

How to become compliant without imposing a heavy workload on your dev team

Achieving compliance with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to technical vulnerability management. However, with the right tools and support, it doesn't have to be. In this blog post, we'll discuss how Aikido and Vanta can help you tackle the technical aspects of SOC 2 compliance.

Covering the Technical Vulnerability Management Requirements for SOC 2

To achieve compliance with SOC 2, companies need to implement technical vulnerability management measures. This involves identifying, prioritizing, and addressing vulnerabilities in your codebase and infrastructure. To cover these requirements and ensure your systems are secure, you need to follow a series of steps and implement a process:

1. Conducting a risk assessment
   The first step is to conduct a risk assessment of your codebase and infrastructure to identify potential vulnerabilities. This involves analyzing your systems and identifying potential weaknesses that could be exploited by attackers.
2. Prioritizing vulnerabilities
   Once you've identified potential vulnerabilities, you need to prioritize them based on their severity and potential impact on your systems. This will help you to focus your efforts on addressing the most critical vulnerabilities first.
3. Addressing vulnerabilities
   The next step is to address the identified vulnerabilities. This can involve implementing patches, upgrading software, or making configuration changes to your systems.
4. Testing for effectiveness
   After addressing the vulnerabilities, it's essential to test the effectiveness of the fixes you've implemented. This involves conducting penetration testing and other security tests to ensure that your systems are secure. Pentests are not a hard requirement for SOC 2 though.
5. Ongoing monitoring
   Finally, it's essential to continually monitor your systems for potential vulnerabilities and threats. This involves implementing a vulnerability management program that regularly scans your codebase and infrastructure for potential vulnerabilities and risks.

By following these steps, companies can ensure that they meet the technical vulnerability management requirements for SOC 2 compliance and have secure systems in place to protect their data and infrastructure.

Automating the process with Aikido

To become compliant, you can implement the process manually or use a vulnerability management platform, such as Aikido. We’ll run you through the process and how to automate it.

1. Conducting a risk assessment

By plugging into your code and cloud infrastructure, Aikido automatically conducts a risk assessment. It thoroughly analyzes your systems, identifying potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. As Aikido is agentless, you can get a full overview in 30 seconds. No more hours wasted installing expensive software or configuring and maintaining free open-source tools.

2. Prioritizing vulnerabilities

Once the risk assessment is complete, Aikido prioritizes the vulnerabilities. Instead of overwhelming you with a long list of all the vulnerabilities present in your system. Vulnerabilities are deduplicated and auto-triaged, you’ll only see the ones that truly matter and are exploitable. This way, you can focus your efforts on addressing the most critical vulnerabilities first.

3. Addressing vulnerabilities

Addressing vulnerabilities can be a manual task, but Aikido makes it easy. Features such as autofix allow you to make a PR with one click. Next to that, Aikido integrates fully with the tools you’re already using. Whether it's implementing patches, upgrading software, or making configuration changes.

4. Testing for effectiveness

To ensure the effectiveness of the fixes implemented, we advise doing a pentest.  This way, you can validate the effectiveness of the security measures and ensure that your systems are robust against potential attacks. Though, for SOC 2, this is not required. Aikido typically works with Shift Left Security, but you’re free to pick any consultant you’d like.

5. Ongoing monitoring

Additionally, Aikido helps you with ongoing monitoring, a crucial aspect of maintaining secure systems. Aikido scans your environment every 24 hours for any new vulnerabilities and risks. By continuously monitoring your systems, you can stay proactive in identifying and addressing any emerging vulnerabilities or threats.

With Aikido, you can automate the entire process of vulnerability management, from risk assessment to vulnerability prioritization, addressing vulnerabilities, testing for effectiveness, and ongoing monitoring. By leveraging Aikido's capabilities, companies can meet the technical vulnerability management requirements for SOC 2 compliance and establish a secure environment to safeguard their data and infrastructure.

Why integrating Aikido & Vanta will save you time & money

No more manual processes to follow up on

Aikido puts technical vulnerability management on autopilot. The platform continuously monitors your security posture in the background. You’ll only be notified when it’s actually important. On top of that, it automates 16 Vanta tests & helps pass 5 Vanta controls.

No more time wasted triaging false positives

The majority of security platforms indiscriminately send all identified vulnerabilities to Vanta. This results in a significant waste of time as you have to sift through numerous false positives. For example, when you use other security tooling, all the vulnerabilities found are sent to Vanta, which means you have to spend a lot of time sorting through them. On the other hand, Aikido has built an auto-triaging engine that acts as a helpful filter, saving you precious time.

No more wasted money on expensive licenses

The security industry is plagued by predatory pricing models that are overly complex. Some companies adopt user-based pricing, which encourages developers to share accounts, ultimately compromising security. Others opt for code-line-based pricing models, which get expensive very quickly. However, we reject these approaches and instead offer a straightforward fixed fee pricing per organization. With Aikido, you can begin at just €249 per month. By choosing our model, you can expect to save approximately 50% compared to competitors.

Vanta, an essential piece of the puzzle

To implement SOC 2, you need to do more than just technical vulnerability management. You’ll need a general, overall Security Compliance Software solution. A platform such as Vanta automates 90% of the complex and time-consuming process of SOC 2. And on top of that, it integrates seamlessly with Aikido. Making all aspects of technical vulnerability management dead simple.

Why wait? Try Aikido today for free (onboarding takes 30 seconds) and fast-track your SOC 2 compliance.