SOC 2 Without the Spreadsheet Chaos: Automating Evidence for Regulated Data Controls
SOC 2 has become table stakes for cloud‑native and SaaS organizations. But for many security and GRC teams, each SOC 2 cycle still feels like starting from scratch; hunting for the latest access reviews, exporting encryption settings from multiple consoles, proving backups and logs exist - per data set, per environment. If your SOC 2 evidence process is still a patchwork of spreadsheets and screenshots, you’re not alone. The missing piece is a data‑centric view of your controls, especially around regulated data.
Why SOC 2 Evidence Is So Hard in Cloud and SaaS Environments
Under SOC 2, trust service criteria like Security, Availability, and Confidentiality translate into specific expectations around data:
Is sensitive or regulated data discovered and classified consistently?
Are core controls (encryption, backup, access, logging) actually in place where that data lives?
Can you show continuous monitoring instead of point‑in‑time screenshots?
In a typical multi‑cloud/SaaS environment:
- Sensitive data is scattered across S3, databases, Snowflake, M365/Google Workspace, Salesforce, and more.
- Different teams own pieces of the puzzle (infra, security, data, app owners).
- Legacy tools are siloed by layer (CSPM for infra, DLP for traffic, privacy catalog for RoPA).
So when SOC 2 comes around, you spend weeks assembling a story instead of being able to show a trusted, provable compliance posture at the data layer.
The Data‑First Approach to SOC 2 Evidence
Instead of treating SOC 2 as a separate project, leading teams are aligning it with their data security posture management (DSPM) strategy:
- Start from the data, not from the infrastructure
- Build a unified inventory of sensitive and regulated data across IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and on‑prem.
- Enrich each store with sensitivity, residency, and business context.
- Attach control posture to each data store
- For each regulated data store, track encryption status, backup configuration, access model, and logging/monitoring coverage as posture attributes.
- Generate SOC‑aligned evidence from the same system
- Use the regulated‑data inventory plus posture engine to produce SOC 2‑friendly reports and CSVs, rather than collecting evidence manually for each audit cycle.
This is exactly the pattern that modern data security platforms like Sentra are implementing.
How Sentra Helps Security and GRC Teams Automate SOC 2 Evidence
Sentra sits across your data estate and focuses on regulated data, with capabilities that map directly onto SOC 2 evidence needs:
Comprehensive data‑store discovery and classification
Agentless discovery of data stores (managed and unmanaged) across multi‑cloud and on‑prem, combined with high‑accuracy classification for regulated and business‑critical data.
Data‑centric security posture
For each store, Sentra tracks security properties—including encryption, backup, logging, and access configuration, and surfaces gaps where sensitive data is insufficiently protected.
Framework‑aligned reporting
SOC 2 and other frameworks can be represented as report templates that pull directly from Sentra’s inventory and posture attributes, giving GRC teams “audit‑ready” exports without rebuilding evidence from scratch.
The result is you can prove control over regulated data, for SOC 2 and beyond, with far less manual overhead.
Mapping SOC 2 Criteria to Data‑Level Evidence
Here’s how a data‑first posture shows up in SOC 2:
CC6.x (Logical and Physical Access Controls)
Evidence: Identity‑to‑data mapping showing which users/roles can access which sensitive datasets across cloud and SaaS.
CC7.x (Change Management / Monitoring)
Evidence: Data Detection & Response (DDR) signals and anomaly analytics around access to crown‑jewel data; logs that tie back to sensitive data stores.
CC8.x (Risk Mitigation)
Evidence: Risk‑prioritized view of data stores based on sensitivity and missing controls, plus remediation workflows or automatic labeling/tagging to tighten upstream policies.
When this data‑level view is in place, SOC 2 becomes evidence selection rather than evidence construction.
A Repeatable SOC 2 Playbook for Security, GRC, and Privacy
To operationalize this approach, many teams follow a recurring pattern:
- Define a “regulated data perimeter” for SOC 2: Identify which clouds, SaaS platforms, and on‑prem stores contain in‑scope data (PII, PHI, PCI, financial records).
- Instrument with DSPM: Deploy a data security platform like Sentra to discover, classify, and map access to that data perimeter.
- Connect GRC to the same source of truth: Have GRC and privacy teams pull their SOC 2 evidence from the same inventory and posture views Security uses for day‑to‑day risk management.
- Continuously refine controls: Use posture and DDR insights to reduce exposure, close misconfigurations, and improve your next SOC 2 cycle before it starts.
The more you lean on a shared, data‑centric foundation, the easier it becomes to maintain a trusted, provable compliance posture across frameworks, not just SOC 2.
Turning SOC 2 From a Project Into a Capability
Ultimately, the goal is to stop treating SOC 2 as a once‑a‑year event and start treating it as an ongoing capability:
- Security, GRC and privacy teams work from one view of regulated data and controls
- Evidence is always a few clicks away, not a month‑long effort
- Every audit strengthens—not distracts from—your data security program
If you’re still living in spreadsheets, it’s time to ask what it would take to make your SOC 2 posture something you can prove on demand.
Ready to end the fire drills and move to continuous compliance? Book a Demo
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Nikki Ralston is Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sentra, with over 20 years of experience bringing cybersecurity innovations to global markets. She works at the intersection of product, sales, and markets translating complex technical solutions into clear value. Nikki is passionate about connecting technology with users to solve hard problems.
