123.Net Data Centers SOC 2 Certified

The Internet has made information more accessible. While this is a good thing, it also makes it vulnerable to bad actors that want to use this information for many different nefarious purposes. For organizations that operate in highly regulated industries not having the necessary protocols in place to protect their data can result in heavy fines from regulators and lawsuits from victims. In announcing all of its data center successfully completed Service Organization Control (SOC 2) certification, 123.Net will be able to assure its customers its facilities are compliant with many of the regulations that are currently enforced in the healthcare, financial and other industries.

The SOC was created by the AICPA or American Institute of CPAs, an organization founded in 1887 to represent the CPA profession. As an advocate for setting the right rules and standards, SOC certification is part of the organizations attempt to ensure the strict code of professional ethics it abides by are followed by service provider serving consumers or other businesses.

As more businesses began to outsource different functions to service organizations, including document management, human resources medical claims processing, payroll processing and others, the risk of this information falling into the wrong hands was a real possibility during transit or while in the premises of the service provider. 

The SOC 2 reports on controls of service organizations related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality or privacy, this according to the AICPA. The goal of this report is to ensure the systems that are in place by service organizations to process this data has the strictest confidentiality and privacy protocols as well as security.

The guide established by the AICPA provides direction to confirm the guidelines have been met, and the report or certification validates oversight over the organization, vendor management programs, internal corporate governance, risk management processes and regulatory oversight.

"SOC 2 auditing was an exhaustive process that examined every corner of our business. We believe it was an entirely worthwhile exercise and one that reflects our commitment to customer service…"Our investment in SOC2 certification serves as a clear signal that 123.Net not only has industry-best practices in place, but that we also have the policies and procedures to ensure that those practices are followed every day for every client," said Dan Irvin, 123.Net's CEO.

The need to pass this certification is based on the increased number of regulatory compliances in which many different organizations have to abide by. According to 23.Net, its continued expansion in Michigan along with serving several Fortune 100 companies requires those organizations to have absolute assurance it is properly being managed across all of the SOC 2 conditions.

With the SOC 2 approval 123.Net can give its clients their data is being managed with the security, administrative control, technical safeguards, availability, process integrity and confidentiality the AICPA demands for HIPAA, PCI DSS and other regulations.

Edited by Maurice Nagle