Question 1

SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2 — what do I actually need?

Accepted Answer

Type 1 proves controls are designed right on one day; Type 2 proves they operated over months. Type 1 is the down payment, Type 2 is what buyers want.

Question 2

HIPAA vs SOC 2 — one, the other, or both?

Accepted Answer

A law vs a voluntary audit — apples and oranges. If you touch health data HIPAA is mandatory; SOC 2 is how you prove security to buyers. Health-tech usually does both via a HIPAA-mapped SOC 2.

Question 3

HITRUST e1 vs i1 — which assessment?

Accepted Answer

e1 is foundational (~44 controls, a stepping stone); i1 is leading practices (~182, what procurement accepts). If a contract says 'HITRUST certified,' they mean i1 or higher.

Question 4

HITRUST vs SOC 2 — what do healthcare buyers trust?

Accepted Answer

Prescriptive scored certification vs flexible attestation. In hospital/payer procurement, HITRUST is often the checkbox that actually unblocks the deal — its CSF also maps to HIPAA, NIST, ISO.

Question 5

PCI DSS 3.2.1 vs 4.0 — what changed?

Accepted Answer

3.2.1 is retired. 4.0 adds the Customized Approach, all-access MFA, and targeted risk analyses — and the future-dated requirements became mandatory March 31, 2025.

Question 6

ISO 27001:2013 vs 2022 — what's new?

Accepted Answer

Annex A was rebuilt: 114 controls → 93 in 4 themes, plus 11 brand-new cloud-era controls (threat intel, cloud services, data masking, DLP, secure coding). The ISMS core barely moved.

Question 7

FedRAMP Moderate vs High — which level?

Accepted Answer

Set by the data's breach impact. Moderate covers most federal SaaS (~325 controls); High (~410+) is for catastrophic-impact data and usually needs GovCloud. Don't over-buy High.

Question 8

SOC 2 for AI vendors — what's different?

Accepted Answer

Buyers scrutinize training-data boundaries, your LLM sub-processors (OpenAI/Anthropic), prompt logging, and deletion. A generic SOC 2 doesn't answer those — yours has to address model/data handling explicitly.

Question 9

SOC 2 vs ISO 27001 — which first?

Accepted Answer

US buyers → SOC 2 (faster, attestation); global/EU buyers → ISO 27001 (certification). Controls overlap ~80%, so one program can feed both.

Question 10

How much does SOC 2 cost (and how long)?

Accepted Answer

Budget three buckets — readiness (your time + tooling), the audit fee, and ongoing maintenance. The audit fee is often the smallest. Tight scope is the biggest cost lever; a Type 2 is usually 6–9 months end-to-end.

The compliance questions operators actually Google — with honest answers