Financial compliance frameworks exist because regulators, auditors, and customers need proof that the systems handling sensitive financial data are controlled, monitored, and documented. That proof does not come from buying the right software. It comes from building and operating your environment correctly — and being able to demonstrate that you did.
Most organizations find out what they are missing when an auditor asks for evidence they do not have. We help you find those gaps before the auditor does.
SOX — Sarbanes-Oxley IT General Controls
SOX compliance for IT is not about accounting — it is about proving that the systems supporting financial reporting are protected from unauthorized change and that access is controlled and logged. Auditors want to see that only the right people can touch the right systems, that every change goes through a formal process, and that there is an audit trail that cannot be quietly edited.
What that requires in practice: role-based access controls with documented provisioning and deprovisioning processes, privileged access management with session logging, change management workflows with documented approvals and rollback procedures, segregation of duties enforced at the system level (not just on paper), and audit log retention that survives legal hold requirements.
The risk when this is not in place: a material weakness finding during your external audit. Material weaknesses delay financial statement filings, damage investor confidence, and create personal liability for executives who signed the certifications. SOX IT findings are not obscure compliance footnotes — they move markets.
We implement the controls, document the procedures, and produce the evidence packages auditors expect to see. Your external auditors test controls we built, against documentation we helped write. That is a different audit experience than showing up and hoping.
PCI-DSS — Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
If your environment touches cardholder data — stores it, processes it, or transmits it — PCI-DSS governs how that environment must be built and operated. The standard is detailed, technical, and unforgiving about scope. Misunderstanding your cardholder data environment (CDE) is one of the most expensive mistakes a financial services organization can make.
What the standard actually requires: network segmentation that isolates the CDE from everything else (and the documentation to prove it), encryption of cardholder data at rest and in transit with documented key management procedures, quarterly internal and external vulnerability scanning by an ASV, annual penetration testing that covers both network and application layers, access controls that enforce least privilege with unique user IDs and no shared credentials, and logging and monitoring that captures all access to cardholder data with retention long enough to support forensic investigation.
The risk when this is not in place: card brand fines, loss of the ability to process card payments, mandatory forensic investigation costs following a breach, and liability for fraud losses. QSAs do not grade on a curve. Requirements are either met or they are not.
We build PCI-compliant network architectures, implement the required controls, support your ASV scanning program, prepare your environment for QSA assessment, and produce the documentation that makes the assessment go cleanly. We have worked through QSA assessments on environments that were starting from scratch and environments that failed a previous assessment and needed remediation under deadline.
SOC 2 — Service Organization Controls
SOC 2 is what your enterprise customers ask for when they want proof that your systems are secure, available, and handling their data properly. A SOC 2 Type II report covering a 12-month period is quickly becoming a baseline requirement for selling to large enterprises, financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and government-adjacent commercial entities.
The Trust Services Criteria cover Security (the baseline for every SOC 2), Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. Your auditor selects which criteria apply based on what you do with customer data. Security is always in scope. The others depend on your service commitments.
Type I is a point-in-time assessment: your controls are designed correctly as of a specific date. Type II is what customers actually want: evidence that those controls operated effectively over a period of time — typically six to twelve months. The difference between a Type I and a Type II is not the audit itself. It is having controls that are actually running, logged, and documented every day for the observation period.
Where organizations fail SOC 2: controls that exist in policy but are not enforced technically, access reviews that are supposed to happen quarterly but have no evidence they occurred, change management processes that developers work around, incident response procedures that have never been tested. Auditors ask for evidence. Policy documents are not evidence. Logs, tickets, access review sign-offs, and test results are evidence.
We build the control environment, establish the operational cadence, and prepare you for the observation period before the auditor starts the clock. When your Type II window opens, the evidence is already being generated systematically — not assembled retroactively the week before the report is due.
GLBA — Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Safeguards Rule
The FTC's updated Safeguards Rule requires financial institutions — banks, mortgage companies, auto dealers, tax preparers, investment advisors, and others — to implement a written information security program that meets specific technical requirements. The 2023 updates added teeth: specific controls are now mandatory rather than suggested, and covered institutions above certain size thresholds must designate a qualified individual to oversee the program.
What the updated rule requires: a written risk assessment that identifies reasonably foreseeable threats, access controls that include multi-factor authentication for any system with customer financial information, encryption of customer data at rest and in transit, secure development practices for in-house applications, incident response planning with defined roles and communication procedures, vendor due diligence and contractual security requirements for service providers, and annual reporting to the board or senior officer.
The risk when this is not in place: FTC enforcement action, state attorney general investigations, and the personal liability that comes with a regulatory finding after a breach. The Safeguards Rule is not a framework you self-certify against. Regulators look at what your program actually does, not what your policy document says it does.
We implement the technical controls the rule requires, write the risk assessment and information security program documentation, establish the vendor management process, and build the incident response capability. We also work with your qualified individual or help you define what that role should look like in your organization. When a regulator reviews your program, you hand them documentation that reflects a real security program — not a template you downloaded and never updated.