Organizer Questionnaire Cover And Engagement Letter: Fill & Download for Free

To have a best business idea you need to have the best business plan too…So I m sure you will give some time on planning. Now let's have a look on the new startup ideas w.r.t. digitalisation and according to current Indian or Global Market :Let's know 15 such markets ideas which really have huge opportunities:1.BUSINESS PLAN SERVICE : Offer a soup-to-nuts business plan, including market research, the business plan narrative and the financial statements. Plan your fee around the main one that the client will want and offer the others as add-on services. You can give clients an electronic file and allow them to take it from there, or you can keep the business plan on file and offer the service of tweaking it whenever necessary. Have business plan samples to show clients--and make sure to include your own!2.COMPUTER REPAIR : Study the main types of software that system users will want--word processing, photo manipulation software, mail merge, spreadsheet, design and especially security software. Investigate all the components--monitor types in all their varieties; keyboards, from wired to ergonomic to wireless; mouse types; as well as peripheral components like printers and scanners. Become completely familiar with all the ISPs (internet service providers) available in the market area you plan to cover. Establish yourself as the guru who can meet the needs of the personal computer user, the small business or a larger corporation.3. CONSULTANT : Be a consultant and help other people's with their concerns. To be a consultant, you need to have an expertise in something so you can market yourself as an advisor to others looking to work in that area. Perhaps you managed several large warehouses in your career with a drugstore company, you did all the marketing for many years for a large shoe manufacturer or you set up a chain of beauty supply shops or take-out restaurants. You can use this experience to help others do similar things without making the same mistakes that you made along the way.4.ELECTRONICS REPAIR : This business is similar to the computer repair business, but you will take on all sorts of electronic equipment besides just computers. With smaller electronics, you will need to be prepared to have customers bring their repair projects to you, as you would have difficulty recovering the cost of driving around picking up broken equipment and returning it. You may also want to encourage people to give you their old electronics so you can use them for parts.5. EVENT PLANNING : One of the first things you need to do is visit every potential event location with which you plan to work. Work with the marketing manager to tour each site and learn what is available at each location. Start a database that will allow you to sort venues by varying features--the number of people each site holds, if there is AV equipment available on site, will you need to arrange for rental chairs, etc. Then when you are beginning to plan an event with a client, you can find out what the key parameters are for the event and easily pull up the three or four sites that meet the basic criteria. and engagement parties, etc.6.HOUSEHOLD Organiser: You can choose either to do the organizing work or to come in to a home and consult on the things the homeowner could do to better organize. Have a portfolio of different organizational scenarios in different rooms in the home and talk with the homeowner about the style he or she likes. Create checklists and questionnaires to understand how the family uses the home. Are the kids wildly busy with after-school activities? Or are they usually home after school and want access to their toys? Do they share rooms? All of these things will help you tailor an organizing plan and become the family hero.7.PERSONAL TRAINER : Advertise your services in places where everyone goes, like restaurants and grocery stores. Having a website is a good idea--people want some privacy in their decision-making when it comes to getting fit. They can go to your website and determine if your approach to personal training is an approach that would work for them. It is important to emphasize the safety aspect of using a personal trainer. You can help clients get fit and avoid injury.8.INTERIOR DECORATOR : Market your talents to building contractors. People purchasing new homes can often be overwhelmed with the choices and possibilities in home decorating. Design some questionnaires for each major element and each major room in the house. Find out how the homeowner will use the home--are there children? Pets? Does the woman of the house wear high heels? Do the home's residents neglect to remove shoes? How will each room be used? Where might task lighting and ambient lighting be most appropriate?9.WEDDING PLANNER : You will need to be up-to-date on wedding trends and fads, dress styles, color trends--almost everything under the sun! Offer your customers an ala carte menu of services, from helping pick flowers, the wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses to picking the venue and hiring the caterer. Before you open your business, shop at all the wedding shops, and even pretend you are a bride-to-be to see what kinds of services the wedding gown shop provides and how they treat potential customers. You need to know every detail of the business to give the accurate impression that you are the go-to person for anyone planning a wedding.10. APPLIANCE REPAIR : Every household has a number of appliances, large and small. You can work on your own or on contract with appliance stores to cover their warranty service calls--or, best of all, you can do some of each. Plan to start slow and build your customer base on recommendations and referrals based on work well done. Consider developing relationships with contractors to be the go-to person to install appliances in newly constructed houses.11. COMPUTER TRAINING : If you are proficient in both Macintosh and PC, you should offer training in both types of computers. You could probably make a living helping seniors learn how to use the internet and e-mail to keep in touch with their loved ones, who are now commonly spread around the country. Err on the side of caution in this business. People do not want to know all the details about what makes a computer work. If you overload them with information from the beginning by explaining bits, bytes, and megapixels, they will stick to their paper and pencil forever.12. DESKTOP PUBLISHER : You can use desktop publishing software to create newsletters, magazines, books or even marketing materials. You can create the content for your desktop publications, or you can pay a writer to create the content for you. Alternatively, you can advertise your desktop publishing services to design and create newsletters and books for others with their content.13. FENCE INSTALLATIONS : Fences are everywhere. And they don't last forever, so they need to be repaired and replaced with a certain amount of frequency. The most common fence material is wood. However, vinyl has become a popular fence choice due to its longevity and relative freedom from maintenance. Wrought iron is another common fencing, especially in urban environments. You can have fun shopping for vintage wrought iron fencing at salvage yards.14. FREELANCE GRAPHIC DESIGNER : Despite the proliferation of the internet, print media is here to stay for the foreseeable future! Fliers, newsletters, magazines, information sheets, letters and advertisements are just a few of the types of print media that business hire freelancers to create for them. Websites and online advertising need graphic design services as well. Even if your expertise is only in design, offer the works for potential clients, including the editorial creation and the printing and even mailing of the final piece. You can line up regular freelancers for those parts of the job you can't do.15.PET SITTING : Starting a pet sitting service requires almost nothing in start-up costs. You do need some general credentials that will cost little or nothing to acquire. Your list of credentials should probably include personal pet ownership--if not currently, at least in the past--as well as other pet-related experience, including working at a pet food store, an animal hospital or other animal-related business. You will need to spend a little to become "bonded." This is known as "honesty insurance," and ensures your clients that you won't get their house keys and make off with their valuables (or that they'll get their money back if you do).

How to TeachTeaching well is an art rooted in practical, applied, behavioral sciences. There are definitely techniques that have been proven to work better than the typical "stand and deliver" lecture or presenting them with only linear or sequential information such as reading or listening to lecture. Pictures, maps and hands on efforts can teach several concepts simultaneously, instead of only receiving line after line to read or write. Successful teachers focus more on facilitating meaningful, expanded, multiple representations of information in learning experiences--and, all in all, that isn't so difficult to learn how to do. Read on to learn basic steps for becoming a good teacher in common teaching situations--from analyzing student needs, developing and facilitating meaningful learning objectives for your lesson plans, to following through on the learning design and giving feedback, with appropriate assessments.In a Hurry?To become a successful teacher, use music, pictures, and physical objects in your lessons to break up the monotony of a lecture. Remind your students during discussions that every answer, even if it’s wrong, brings the group closer to a new, exciting discovery. Encourage creativity with open-ended assignments like poems or songs, and provide positive emotional support to help their confidence soar! Read on for advice on earning respect from your students, and showing it to them in return.Part One of 11:Identify Needs1Identify crucial academic skills.These include reading and essential math skills used in many other subjects. Prioritize crucial lessons. Think about what skills your students will need to employ in order to make it through elementary and secondary school, be ready for higher education and progress onward throughout their lives. Think about the skills you use as an adult, such as good communication skills, including questioning and courageous speaking skills, and finding/looking up what you need to know. Plan and follow through on ways to build those skills in your students. These should be skills which students will need to function in various areas of life.2Identify complementary, life-improving skills. Encourage not only following learned processes and procedures, but also to find ways to use initiative, self-expression within guidelines -- without being unruly or disruptive. Once the crucial skills have been identified, consider complementary skills for happy, productive lives. Praise and place value on their using creative skills and problem solving, being opportunity makers and help them be providers of interesting questions and giving answers and information in class.Give them crucial emotional outlets including participating at their age level in arts, music and expression as a creator and a performer, not only being a spectator.3Identify emotional and social skills. It’s not just academic skills which make people more functional, self-actualizing human beings. Apply techniques in your classroom to help students develop self-confidence, overcome shyness/"stage fright" by many steps, building self-esteem one effort at a time, coping with stress and disappointment (not just taking the easy escape), learning to not be overly defensive. They need to learn to accept reality without embarrassment by encouraging their efforts and trying again, and not unfairly blaming others for difficulties. They need ways to interact, being inclusive of other students needs, and productive coordination with others.Part Two of 11:Set Goals1Determine overall goals. Once you’ve identified the major skills which your students will need to succeed in life, determine some goals based on those skills. If you have a bunch of kindergarteners who will eventually need to read, for example, you want them to know their alphabet, the basic sounds of some special letters, and also be able to recognize simple sight words (eventually you can get around to advanced ideas such as: c in cat sounds like "k" -- "keh", and an example of k might be "keep". But c in ceiling sounds like "s" -- "sss", an exciting example of s might be "snake"/pronounce the "sssnake" and show them the "ssss" of a "hissing snake" -- but do not mention it so soon as to confuse the idea of phonics).2Set specific goals. Once you know what your general goals are for the class, think of specific goals which will serve to show you that those overall goals have been met. Have your kindergarteners from the previous step be able to read and write the alphabet forwards and backwards and read basic three letter words, for example.3Outline how those goals will be reached. Now that you know what you want your students to be able to do, outline the smaller skills which be necessary to get them to those larger goals. These will be mini-goals and will serve as a road map. With the kindergarteners, an example of these mini-goals would be learning each individual letter, learning to identify compound sounds, and then learning how to string sounds together.Part Three of 11:Develop Lesson Plans1Outline each course that you teach to achieve education goals; the school may require each teacher to have a course syllabus or similar document. Now that you have your educational roadmap, make a lesson plan which specifically lists how you will get them to each step in that road. Every skill that will need to be mastered in order to get them between those mini-goals will need to be planned and written down.2Consider learning styles. When making your lesson plan, keep learning styles in mind. Every student learns differently and if you want your whole class to have equal opportunity for success, you will need to accommodate these. Plan to use sound, visuals, manipulatives, physical activity and the written materials along with your student centered lessons for facilitating, introducing, modeling, giving guided practice and periodic homework all for each subject, whenever possible.3Mix subject matter to build cross-curricular, multiple skills.If you are in an environment where you can interrelate subject matters, such as science and math or English and history, do some of that. This will help students understand how information is applied and is more related to the situations they will encounter in the real world. Life is not broken up into class subjects, after all. Find ways that you can collaborate with other teachers to provide your students with engaging, integrative lessons.Part Four of 11:Engage Students1Use visual aids and multiple representations of concepts.Introduce as many visual aids as possible into your lessons. This is not only for social studies, math, earth, physical, chemical, biological and social sciences. Social studies and many science related classes can use graphs, charts, maps, the globe, photos, movies and timelines -- such is true for their history and government studies. Certainly, math can involve grouping, recognizing changing patterns in sequences of numbers, contextual clues and shapes, with mathematical modeling often including formulas, graphic representations, diagrams, charts, "mappings of data" by various kinds of graphs. Also, collecting, organizing and presenting data can show the student how data is used in all kinds of subjects. Such things will give students more concrete experience, non-linear, multiple forms of applications/uses of data, visualizations, images and examples of the things which you are discussing. Complex concepts are often difficult to imagine and having a chart, an image to work, a choice of techniques, or an understandable formula will help many students stay engaged with the material, rather than tuning out because they can’t follow a dry, linear discussion.2Employ activities. Generally, it is better to never lecture for more than 15 minutes at a time. Besides reading, writing and written activities. You will want to often be getting your students active in the material and learning process. You can do this by having hands-on learning opportunities like learning activities (don't call them games), peer-to-peer discussions, or question and answer time (where either you ask the questions or they do).3Engage everyone. How? Create a variety of ways to use questions and answer/discussion sessions. One basic is keeping all students "on-deck" in the batters circle, so anyone may be the next one "up to bat". This will keep students from tuning out while others engage.One method would be to keep a jar with student’s names written on a popsicle stick. Pull from the jar at random and the student will be required to either ask a pertinent question or answer one.Wait for the answer. Count to four to remind yourself to wait, when you use open questions where anybody can volunteer to ask or answer them. Avoid giving in to the urge to jump in to answer your question or to finish their answer. Draw out important issues from them. Don't to quickly rescue the student, allow them to answer deliberately, not freaking them out by pressure or showing how smart you are. You defeat their motivation if you have to wow them as a genius/expert.Class wide actions such as getting quiet when asked, ready to go to lunch or putting away one/getting another kind of book and materials can be time to utilize a classroom scoreboard with positive and negative marks that can lead to a reward or penalty for the whole group.4Relate material to the outside world. Since the point of learning is to gain real-world skills, you will want to constantly relate the skills and information in your class to the student’s lives and things which will affect them in the future.[1]Students should never question why they need to learn the material they are learning and if you can’t come up with a real-world example then maybe you shouldn’t be teaching it.Math skills should be related back to things like paying bills, getting a good mortgage, and future work tasks, such as: choices of fields such as futures involving more and more technologies, and of course inspire dreams of engineering and architecture, etc. English skills can be used to write stories, books, business reports, personal and business letters, resumes, cover letters or grant proposals. Science skills can be used to understand electrical motors, electronics, the solar system and universe, chemicals, fix clogged sinks or evaluate illnesses. History and social studies skills can be used to understand civilization, community and government, determine political values and voting decisions. Sociology skills can be used to help hypothetical family, future children, friends, or strangers.Part Five of 11:Allow Independent Exploration1Get your students outside. This isn’t just about getting them active or getting them out in the sun (although those are good things!). The point of going to school isn’t only to build skills for passing some test, it’s important to teach people how to adapt, grow and live better in the real world. Get them out of the classroom to put their skills to use such as collecting information, going to the library to do research. Get students to interview someone for information about a profession or skill.Take a science class to the beach to identify animals and plant life or geological features. Take an English class to an early-stage play rehearsal, so that they can see how dialogue choices and changes affect perception of events and characters. Take a history class to interview nursing home residents or a sociology class to interview prison inmates.2Let them experiment. Allow for creative interpretations of assignments. Allow students to pose questions and follow other routes. Letting them guide their own learning will help them learn better and keep them interested in what they’re doing.For example, in a lab experiment about putting mice in mazes, if your student suddenly wonders what would happen, if mirrors were introduced into the maze, let them do that. An assignment does not have to be strictly adhered to in order for students to gain valuable knowledge from it.3Encourage innovation. Success fosters/breeds success. Let your students make new designs and create things. Give them broad assignments with specific goals and let them come to their own method of reaching that goal. This will let them create a relevant learning design and personal method which is best suited to their style and interests, keeping them invested in the assignment and encouraging daily progress (which is success).For example, you can have an occasional English assignment where a student must write a certain number of words on a particular, broad topic. However, tell them that how those words are arranged and presented is entirely up to them. They can make a comic, write a song, write and do a stand-up routine, write an essay, make a poster or a presentation... anything that speaks to and engages them in their interests, being relevant.Part Six of 11:Reinforce Learning1Interact during independent study. While students are working on assignments in class or engaging in other methods of independent study in the classroom, you will want to go around the room and engage them about what they are doing. Ask how things are going. Don’t just ask what’s wrong, ask what they feel they are understanding really well too. Get more out of them than “I’m doing fine” or “Everything’s okay”. You can even ask them to explain what they are doing or what their understanding of the assignment is.2Discuss weak points. After an assignment, look at the overall performance of the class. Identify common problems or potentially common problems and discuss these. Talk about why the mistake is easy to make and how to identify the problem. Talk about how it’s fixed or a better approach. Understanding a problem beyond “this is wrong and this is right” will give students much stronger abilities to problem solve later.3Occasionally revisit old material.Don’t cover something at the beginning of the year and never talk about it again. Constantly tie new material to the skills established in previous lessons. This will solidify and reinforce the skills that a student has gained, much like learning a language requires study every day.For example, an English lesson on writing argumentative papers may want to draw on the skills learned earlier regarding narrative works by discussing how one can use stories within argumentative papers to make emotional appeals or how voice can affect a reader’s perception of information.Part Seven of 11:Assess Progress1Construct well balanced tests.Have you ever had a test which was way too easy to fail or a final which was almost exclusively material covered in the last three days of class, rather than material covered over the whole semester? These experiences will help you understand why it’s important to balance your tests. Draw material as is appropriate for the significance of the test and weight it such that it will not make or break a student’s grade. Not everyone tests well.2Consider alternatives to standard tests. Standard tests can be a very inaccurate method of gauging student’s mastery of the material. Very intelligent, successful students can be terrible at taking tests and students who otherwise absorb material very poorly can be excellent test takers. Devise alternative methods which do not put so much pressure on students to succeed in very specific ways.Consider educative evaluation, rather than auditive. Ask your students to devise a real world scenario in which they would use the skills they’ve learned and ask them to write a paper or prepare a presentation explaining how they would handle the situation. This reinforces their skills and gives them the opportunity to show that they not only understood the material itself but that they also understood the significance.3Put a spin on presentations.Public speaking is an important skill, to be sure. However, not everyone learns this by being put on the spot. Work your students up to full-class presentations in order to not only evaluate the extent to which they’ve learned the material but also give them the ability to learn valuable public speaking skills. Once they’ve mastered these easier presentations, you can have full class presentations and see how they fare.You can have students give a presentation, individually, to just you, one by one while others are working on a written assignment that they can do without much help other than an introduction and example. This presentation can be conducted like an interview. Prompting will make them less self-conscious, which should allow them to build presentation skills much more efficiently than immersion into a comprehensive report. It will also give you the opportunity to ask key questions to gauge how well they’ve organized their understandings and learned to apply the material.[2]You can also have them give presentations to their peers, later in the course. They can go one-on-one with peers, as they just did with you, or you can have them go in front of a small panel of their peers, in an organized group process. Have the class students come up with a list of questions beforehand, which will also serve as a learning experience and way for them to demonstrate that they understand the material and evaluate fellow students presentations.Part Eight of 11:Reward Success, See Mistakes as Opportunities1Let students choose their rewards. Create a list of acceptable rewards for excellent performance, either for individual students or the class as a whole, and let your students communally decide how they want to be rewarded. This will help make sure that the reward is an actual incentive, rather than just something you’ve pushed on them that doesn't motivate them to work harder.2Teach advances by "trial and error". Build individual growth in "Ah Hah! moments" made through calm or exciting experience, deliberate organizing and sometimes by interesting experiments. Don’t see failure, see opportunity to advance by increments/steps. Don’t say “wrong!” Say “hey", "close” or “hmm, yeah, that's an idea”, "how about other ideas?", "who tried another way?". When a student has made a mistake, don’t portray it as a tragic comedy or failure. Don’t let them say it was bad but "a reason see what may work." Say and show that "this is a learning experience"; we want to see how "incorrect or correct results can be achieved". Gently show them how to do it correctly, and ask "now, try again.". Remember that a skill learned through trial and error will be much stronger than one which a student may simply get right by accident/guess -- through means they don’t fully understand.3Try community rewards.Promote the success of individual students to benefit the class as a whole and also teams within the class. Traditional learning environments tend to create a system where under-performing students are jealous of those who don’t struggle (the stigmatizing of nerds by envious comparison). You want to create an environment in which students want to work as a united whole and which does not stigmatize or over-blow obvious of success. Quick/sharp students can help others by setting good example, being patient and encouraging of the not so quick students -- . Sometimes more deliberate/slower students are strong as a big truck while others are like sports cars, but powerful trucks draw less biting remarks, not seeming as geeky. Rewarding the group will make your students much more functional adults and prepare them for real world work environments where developing as leaders and "strong" workers can help the team meet deadlines and achieve production goals.For example, create a system in which for each student that scores perfectly on a test, everyone is rewarded. You can give everyone a few points of extra credit or poll the students to find out if they’d prefer a different reward. This encourages them to work together to achieve better results and endears higher performing students to their peers.Part Nine of 11:Meet Emotional Needs1Make them feel unique and needed. Acknowledge and appreciate each student individually, for the qualities which make them unique and wonderful human beings. Encourage those qualities. You should also make each student feel like they have something to offer and contribute. This will raise their confidence and help them to find their proper path in life.2Recognize their efforts. Even if students make only occasional, small efforts, those efforts need to be acknowledged and appreciated. Tell them when they’ve done a good job, individually, and mean it. Don’t be patronizing, be appreciative. If they’ve worked particularly hard, reward them. A student who’s managed to raise their grade from a D to a B+, for example, may have earned the right to pump their grade to an A with “extra credit” for the magnificent amount of work that would have been required to accomplish such a feat.3Give respect. It is extremely important to respect your students. It doesn’t matter if they’re graduate students working on a doctoral thesis or kindergartners: treat them like intelligent, capable human beings. Respect that they have ideas, emotions, and lives that extend beyond your classroom. Treat them with dignity and they will extend the same to you.Part Ten of 11:Get Feedback1Ask your students for feedback.Ask your students for feedback to get their (often very astute) perception of what’s going right and what’s going wrong in the classroom. You can ask them personally or you can create anonymous questionnaires in order to get their ideas on how things are going.2Ask family members for feedback. You can ask your students parents for feedback as well. Maybe they’ve noticed an improvement in their child’s abilities, confidence level, or social skills. Maybe they’ve noticed a drop. Getting this outside perspective can help you make sure that the improvements you notice inside the classroom continue outside, as well as helping to catch problems that maybe you don’t get to see.3Ask your boss for feedback. If you are a teacher at a school, ask the principal or a more experienced teacher to come in and observe you work. Getting their outside perspective will help you, but remember to be open to criticism.Part 11 of 11:Keep Learning1Read up on your craft. Read the latest journals and papers from conferences to keep up with the most innovative methods and new ideas regarding technique. This will help keep you from falling behind in your methods.2Take classes to refresh your skills. Take classes at a local community college or university to keep your skills fresh. These will remind you of techniques you’ve forgotten or strategies that you tend to leave out.3Observe other teachers. Watch not only those that are known to be good at their craft but also those that struggle. Look for why the good things are good and the bad things are bad. Take notes and employ what you learn in your own classroom.4Reflect. At the end of a day/lesson/teaching cycle reflect on what you've done with your class. What you did best. What you didn't do well enough and can do better. What you should not repeat again.Community Q&AHow do I teach someone older than me without it being awkward?Answered by wikiHow ContributorYou are a teacher. It doesn't matter whether they are older, younger or of any age. Just take the fact that you are the teacher and they are the students, nothing more. You know something they need to know, so give it to them. Try explaining things in the same way as you would to your parents or grandparent, don't get overpowered and stay calm and focused.How do you make it fun for students?Answered by wikiHow ContributorTry to make whatever you're teaching interesting. Make them laugh, ask questions about them and engage them in the conversation.TipsShow enthusiasm, speak up, smile about and relish/love what you’re teaching. A teacher that cares strongly about the material and the students growth and improvement will be much more entertaining, interesting, and engaging for a student than one who recites and "lists" facts.The classroom is not the only arena of learning. Your teaching should motivate the students to learn from multiple arenas of learning like visiting a Nature trail, getting exercise on the playground, learning about the work and skills, discipline needed by different professionals (attention to detail, listening, not being bored).WarningsAvoid mechanical approaches such as reading your daily lesson notes as if you're making speeches about the course material. But, instead engage students by questioning and discussing or by activities.

Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2) is an auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). It is designed to ensure service providers and third-party vendors are protecting sensitive data and personal information from unauthorized access.SOC 2 reports cover a period of time (generally 12 months) and include a description of the service organization's system and tests the design and operating effectiveness of key internal controls over a period of time.Information security and defense in depth are important at any organizations. The rise of outsourcing key business operations (e.g. SaaS products and data center providers) means more third and fourth-party data breaches and data leaks are happening.And the cost of data breaches and regulatory scrutiny (due to laws like HIPAA and GDPR) has never been higher.The purpose of SOC 2 is to provide peace of mind for organizations when they engage third-party vendors. This has led to many security-conscious organizations to look for SOC 2 compliance as part of their vendor assessment process to reduce vendor cybersecurity risk.Table of contentsWhat is SOC 2 compliance? The Trust Services Criteria (TSC)What are the different types of SOC reports?What are the different SOC standards?What is a SOC 2 certification or attestation?Why is SOC 2 compliance important?How UpGuard to prevent data breaches and data leaks1. What is SOC 2 compliance? The Trust Services Criteria (TSC)SOC 2 compliance is concerned with managing customer data in accordance with AICPA's five Trust Services Criteria (TSC):Security: The protection of system resources from unauthorized access. This could include network security, intrusion detection and other security tools that protect against vulnerabilities, ransomware like WannaCry and other types of malware. This criteria is concerned reducing cyber threats and preventing data breaches and cyber attacks.Availability: The accessibility of the system, products or services stipulated in contract or by service level agreement (SLA). It does not address system functionality and usability but rather security-related criteria that can affect availability.Processing integrity: Addresses whether a system achieves its purpose in a complete, valid, accurate, timely and authorized manner.Confidentiality: Addresses whether sensitive data is restricted to specific people or organizations. Encryption, phishing awareness training, SSL certificates, DNSSEC and preventing man-in-the-middle attacks, domain hijacking and email spoofing are fundamental to protecting confidentiality.Privacy: Addresses the collection, use, retention, disclosure and disposal of personally identifiable information (PII) and how it aligns with the organization's privacy notice and criteria set out in AICPA's generally accepted privacy principles (GAPP). All PII must be protected from exposure, both accidental and deliberate. Examples of PII data include phone numbers, names and social security numbers.Unlike stricter security standards like PCI DSS, SOC reports are unique to each organization.This means organization controls can be designed, in line with specific business practices , to comply with one or more of the trust services principles.These internal reports provide regulators, business partners, suppliers and your organization with important information about how your service providers are managing sensitive data.2. What are the different types of SOC reports?There are two types of SOC reports:Type I: Describes a vendor's system and organization controls and whether they are suitable to meet relevant criteria.Type II: Details the operating effectiveness of the systems outlined in Type I.A common misconception is to confuse SOC types with SOC standards. Each SOC standards, of which there are three (SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3), can have a SOC report of Type I or Type II.3. What are the different SOC standards?The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) have developed three SOC standards:SOC 1: Evaluates, tests and reports on the effectiveness of the service organization's internal controls which related to user entities' internal controls over financial reporting. A SOC 1 report is equivalent to a Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE 16) report.SOC 2: Evaluates, tests and reports on the systems and organization controls related to storing information but is not significant to financial reporting or financial controls. SOC 2 was preceded by SAS 70.SOC 3: Reports on the same details as a SOC 2 report but is intended for a general audience. They are shorter and do not include the same details as a SOC 2 report but are shared openly, often on a company's website with a seal to indicate compliance.4. What is a SOC 2 certification or attestation?A SOC 2 certification is issued by an independent CPA firm and assesses the extent to which a vendor complies with one or more of the five trust principles based on the service organization's controls and processes.SOC 2 reports consist of:The opinion letterManagement's assertionDescription of the systemDescription of tests of controls and results of testingOther information5. Why is SOC 2 compliance important?Outsourcing and in turn, third-party risk and fourth-party risk have never been higher. Every organization is outsourcing parts of its operations, often to multiple suppliers. Those suppliers are then outsourcing part of their operations to other suppliers.This is why SOC 2, third-party risk management and vendor risk management are so important. Vendor risk needs to be managed carefully with vendor questionnaires, security ratings and industry benchmarking. You can read our white papers on third-party risk management and vendor questionnaires to learn more.The most important thing to understand is customers don't care whether data breaches and data leaks are the result of your mismanagement of their data or your vendor's mismanagement. They just care that their data was exposed or sold on the dark web. Consider making SOC 2 compliance part of your information security policy and cyber security risk assessment process.SOC 2 compliance is one way to determine whether your vendors are managing data in a secure manner. Along with looking for SOC 2 compliance, consider investing in a tool that can automatically monitor your vendors security performance and automate security questionnaires. Better yet, look for a tool that is CVE compatible. And look for shared assessments that allow your organization to obtain a detailed report about your service provider's controls and verify that the information in the report is accurate.Digital forensics isn't always going to give you anything useful and even if it does policing cyber attacks can be hard due to their distributed nature.It's far better to prevent a data breach than try to clean one up after the fact. As many organizations have found out, once data is exposed it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.6. How UpGuard to prevent data breaches and data leaksThere's no question that cybersecurity is more important than ever before. That's why companies like Intercontinental Exchange, Taylor Fry, The New York Stock Exchange, IAG, First State Super, Akamai, Morningstar and NASA use UpGuard to protect their data and prevent data breaches.We're experts in data breaches, in fact our data breach research has been featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Forbes and Techcrunch.UpGuard BreachSight can help combat typosquatting, prevent data breaches and data leaks, avoiding regulatory fines and protecting your customer's trust through cyber security ratings and continuous exposure detection.UpGuard Vendor Risk will continuously monitor, rate and send security questionnaires to your vendors to control third-party risk and fourth-party risk and improve your security posture.Book a demo today.