.svg)
CMMCCMMC 2.0CPCSCITSP.10.171
Featured Insights
Risk Assessment and Security Planning for ITSP.10.171
The majority of ITSP.10.171 control families deal with operational security: how you configure systems, manage access, protect data. The Risk ...
Filter by Tag
Risk Assessment and Security Planning for ITSP.10.171
The majority of ITSP.10.171 control families deal with operational security: how you configure systems, manage access, protect data. The Risk...
From SOC 2 to CPCSC: Extending Your Security Program for Defence Contracts
The question comes up consistently when companies with established security programs look at entering the Canadian defence supply chain: Do we need...
Physical Security and Personnel Controls Under CPCSC
Every other control family in ITSP.10.171 has a reasonable analogue in the commercial compliance world. Access control maps to SOC 2 CC6. Incident...
Protecting Controlled Information: Media and Communications Security (CPCSC)
In a compliance landscape that increasingly assumes cloud-first architecture, media protection controls tend to get deprioritized. The assumption is...
Incident Response and System Integrity Under CPCSC
An incident response plan that exists only in a shared drive is not evidence of preparedness. It is evidence of intent, and the Canadian Program for...
Security Awareness, Training, and Governance for CPCSC
The previous twelve posts in this series covered the technical and operational control families in ITSP.10.171: access control, incident response,...
Configuration Management and System Maintenance for Defence Contractors
There is a specific phrase that comes up in nearly every environment that has never been through a formal configuration review: We know our systems....
Audit Logging, Monitoring, and Accountability for CPCSC
Most organizations produce logs. Application servers generate them, firewalls record them, identity providers track them. The volume is rarely the...
Supply Chain Risk Management Under CPCSC
For most of the history of Canadian defence procurement, cybersecurity obligations ended at the prime contractor's perimeter. A prime could hold a...
Access Control and Identity Management Under ITSP.10.171
Every security program has access controls of some kind. Password policies exist, MFA is probably enabled somewhere, and someone has a spreadsheet...
CPCSC vs CMMC: What Dual-Jurisdiction Contractors Need to Know
Companies operating in both the Canadian and U.S. defence supply chains face a question that does not have a simple answer: how do you satisfy two...
SOC 2 Configuration Baselines for Bare Metal: CIS Benchmarks & Beyond
In cloud environments, configuration compliance is a toggle. Enable AWS Config, deploy a conformance pack, and the platform continuously evaluates...
CPCSC Level 1 Self-Assessment: A Practical Guide
Level 1 self-assessment under the Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC) is not a formality. Based on the program's alignment with...
SOC 2 Backup and Disaster Recovery for On-Premise Infrastructure
Cloud disaster recovery is a region failover. Click a button, spin up infrastructure in another availability zone, and the platform handles...
SOC 2 Access Control for On-Premise and Bare Metal Environments
In cloud environments, access control is a managed service. AWS IAM provides centralized identity, Okta handles SSO across every SaaS tool, and the...
SOC 2 Logging and SIEM for Bare Metal Servers: Building the Evidence Layer
In a cloud environment, centralized logging is a toggle. Enable CloudTrail, turn on VPC Flow Logs, configure GuardDuty, and the compliance platform...
SOC 2 Network Security Controls for On-Premise Environments
Every SOC 2 guide on network security assumes the infrastructure lives in AWS. The advice is always the same: configure security groups, enable VPC...
SOC 2 Vulnerability Scanning for On-Prem: Tiered Scanning Without Cloud-Native Tools
Every SOC 2 vulnerability scanning guide assumes the same starting point: connect a cloud-native scanner, enable automated assessments, and let the...
SOC 2 Readiness for Bare Metal SaaS: What to Expect When You Don't Run on AWS
A pattern keeps showing up. A SaaS company that has been running successfully for years, sometimes a decade or more, gets a call from a major...
The SOC 2 Snowball: How Law 25 Is Pushing Compliance Down the Supply Chain
SOC 2, and compliance in general, is self-perpetuating. Once a company achieves certification, one of the first things the framework requires is...
Bridging the Evidence Gap: How to Turn Solid Security into SOC 2 Compliance
The most common compliance gap has nothing to do with missing controls. It's missing evidence.
Across our engagements, the pattern is consistent:...
Why We Recommend SOC 2 Type 1 (Even Though You Don't Need It)
Most companies skip straight to Type 2. It's the *real* SOC 2, right? Type 1 is just not worth it. We used to think that way too. We've changed our...
SOC 2 Ticketing & SLAs: Vulnerability Patching & Incident Response
TL;DR: SOC 2 compliance requires a formal, trackable process for all security-relevant activities. Under the Trust Services Criteria, this means...
SOC 2 People Scoping: Which Employees, Contractors, and Vendors Are In Scope
TL;DR: The core question for SOC 2 people scoping: does their role or access affect your system's ability to meet its Trust Services Criteria...
Automate CI/CD Security for SOC 2: SAST, SCA, DAST Integration Guide
As a CTO, securing your CI/CD pipeline is critical for SOC 2 compliance. This guide shows you how to automate essential security scans, Container...
Supply Chain Cyber Risk: Why Your Vendors' Security Is Your Problem
Supply chain cyber risk has become one of the most pressing cybersecurity challenges for businesses of all sizes. A single compromise in a supplier’s...
Understanding ISO 42001: Why It Matters for AI Companies
In the ever-evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) industries, staying ahead of regulatory and operational...
Why Invest in Compliance Automation If You Only Need SOC 2?
TL;DR: Even when SOC 2 is the only compliance requirement on the table, a compliance automation platform (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Scrut) pays for...
Security Questionnaire Automation: From Fire Drill to System
Security Questionnaire Automation: From Fire Drill to System
A 200-question security questionnaire lands in the sales team's inbox on a Thursday...
What Is Cyber Security Posture? Definition and Importance
Like in any industry, cyber security and cybercrime is constantly evolving. To keep up, you need to remain familiar with upcoming trends and the...
SOC 2 Trust Services Categories: Security, Availability, and Beyond
As a startup navigating the complexities of data security, understanding SOC 2 compliance is essential. SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2) is...
Shift-Left Cybersecurity Compliance: Benefits & Challenges
New business reality is that companies must prioritize cybersecurity compliance to protect customer data and demonstrate their security posture. The...
SOC 2 Renewal: What Changes the Second Time Around
For many SaaS companies, achieving SOC 2 compliance is a major milestone, a sign that they take security and customer trust seriously. But the real...
What Is a SOC 2 Type 2 Report and Why Does It Matter?
TL;DR: A SOC 2 Type 2 report is an independent audit that evaluates whether an organization's security controls are operating effectively over a...
How to Build a Security Program That Maps to Any Framework
Every compliance framework, SOC 2, ISO 27001, CMMC, HIPAA, asks the same fundamental question: does this organization have an effective security...
A Practical Guide for Ransomware Response
Ransomware attacks are among the most disruptive forms of cybercrime, locking businesses out of their own data and demanding ransom for its release....
GRC Engineering: What It Actually Takes to Build Compliance Into How You Operate
The term GRC engineering gets thrown around in conference talks and vendor marketing as if it's a single product you can install. It isn't. GRC...
SOC 2 Compliance Roadmap: From Gap Assessment to Audit-Ready
Every SOC 2 roadmap on the internet reads the same way: pick a platform, connect your integrations, run the gap analysis, remediate, audit. Five...
SOC 2 vs. ISO 27001: What Actually Overlaps, What Doesn't, and How to Decide
A question that comes up in nearly every initial engagement: Should we do SOC 2 or ISO 27001? Sometimes followed by Can we do both without doubling...
SOC 2 CSOCs Explained: Carve-Out vs Inclusive Method for Subservice Organizations
During a recent SOC 2 engagement, the question came up: the company runs its production systems in a colocation facility. Physical security, power,...
What Is ISO 42001? The AI Management Standard Explained
What Is ISO 42001? The AI Management Standard Explained
ISO/IEC 42001:2023 is the world's first international standard for managing artificial...
ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act: What Actually Maps and What Doesn't
The Compliance Question Every AI Company Is Asking
The EU AI Act entered into force on August 1, 2024, making it the first comprehensive AI...
ISO 42001 Software Costs: What to Budget for Certification
The Cost of AI Governance: Benchmarking Investment in ISO 42001 Compliance Software
Implementing ISO/IEC 42001 is a strategic necessity for AI SaaS...
AI-Specific Risks and Mitigation Strategies Under ISO 42001
AI-Specific Risks and ISO 42001: A Deep Dive for MLOps and Security Teams
For AI-driven SaaS companies, compliance with ISO/IEC 42001 is...
SOC 2 Automation with Vanta, Drata, and Others: What the Platform Won't Do for You
Six months after buying Drata, Vanta, Secureframe, or any other compliance automation platform, a company realizes the dashboard is half-populated,...
Security Logging and Monitoring Architecture for SOC 2 and ISO 27001
In cybersecurity, what you don’t know can hurt you. An unmonitored system is a black box where attackers can operate undetected for weeks or months. ...
Web Summit Vancouver: Gary Marcus on AI Limitations and Risks
Key Takeaways from the Web Summit Keynote: A Reality Check on the AI Hype
AI dominated the conversation at this 2025's Web Summit, and for good...
CMMC Level 1 Compliance: What the 15 Practices Actually Require
As of November 2025, CMMC is no longer a concept the DoD is considering. It is a contract requirement. Contracting officers are now including CMMC...
SOC 2 Compliance Automation: What Platforms Do and Don't Cover
Achieving SOC 2 compliance is a major milestone for SaaS companies and service providers handling sensitive customer data. Yet, for many startups and...
How to Implement ISO 42001: A Practical Guide for AI SaaS Companies
ISO 42001 is the first international standard for AI management systems, and most of the content about it reads like it was written by the standards...
ISO 42001 vs ISO 27001: What's Different and When You Need Both
Two Standards, One Security Foundation
ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 address fundamentally different risks, but they share more infrastructure than most...
AI Governance in GRC: How ISO 42001 Fits Into Your Compliance Program
As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly embeds itself into core business processes, from customer support to code generation, enterprises face a...
ISO 42001 Compliance Software: 2026 Platform Review
The Platforms Compared
Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, and Scrut have all added dedicated ISO 42001 framework support. All four automate evidence...
Drata vs Vanta for ISO 42001 (2026 Comparison)
How They Compare
Both Drata and Vanta offer dedicated ISO 42001 framework support with automated evidence collection, control cross-mapping to ISO...
