>SOC2 is pretty heavy duty to achieve and to maintain.

As an auditee who dealt with SOC2 for the last 3 years I'd say that's not true. It's heavy on reviewing documentation and not the true efficacy of your security program.

> SOC2 is pretty heavy duty to achieve and to maintain.

LOL, no. I've gone through SOC2, and it's not hard at all to achieve. SOC2 is basically just about (1) documenting controls and (2) following them. You have a lot of leeway with your auditor on what those controls entail (and remember, you choose and pay your auditor, so there's also a huge conflict of interest here).

We did have to do a yearly security audit, but it's foolish to think that will catch all issues, and it relies a lot on the company being helpful and open with their auditor. You also a lot of leeway in arguing down issue severity.

We got SOC2 certified because many companies require that their vendors have it, but I personally think it has little to no value, and I would not trust a company any more because they've gone through it.

The auditors, were they IT security professionals (if so, about how many years experience?), or accountants, or mixed, or something else?

Were there any requirements about pentesting one's company somehow?

Did they look at source code?

Auditors looking at source code.. Are you serious? From that question alone I can tell you know nothing about these audits.

Actually there are auditors who look at source code — "code audits",

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_audit

And there's a job role called "Source Code Auditor".

Question was if GGP's SOC2 case involved any such source code audits or not.

Now, having read https://latacora.micro.blog/2020/03/12/the-soc-starting.html (linked from a nearby comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25489586), seems SOC2 does not include those types of audits. Could still be nice to hear directly from GGP @necubi though. ("yearly security audit"?)

I agree it should be a thing but having been part of a few code audits which were just part of normal company acquisition processes, I know that it takes months to audit the code base of even a moderate sized web application unless it uses a framework whose libraries can be eliminated through md5checks against the originals

I am NOT well versed (so standard disclaimers apply :) but

https://latacora.micro.blog/2020/03/12/the-soc-starting.html

says that SOC2 is (mostly) about sales and little about validating security practices, only that you have them. I find it telling that SOC2 audits are performed by accountants.

Even a financial audit is based on what the company tells the auditors and is about whether the financial reporting conforms to generally accepted principles, not whether it's actually correct.

lol! SOC2 is a joke. it’s checkbox compliance and rather easy to achieve.