In short
ISO 27001 is an international, certifiable standard for an information security management system (ISMS). SOC 2 is not a certificate but an attestation report issued by a CPA against the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria. Put simply: ISO 27001 dominates in Europe and internationally, SOC 2 in the North American B2B SaaS market — and both can be served with largely the same set of controls.
What is ISO 27001?
ISO/IEC 27001 is the international standard for information security management systems. An accredited certification body audits whether the ISMS meets the standard's requirements and issues a certificate valid for three years, confirmed by annual surveillance audits.
The audit covers the management system as a whole: risk methodology, responsibilities, implemented controls (Annex A of the 2022 revision contains 93 reference controls), and the continuous improvement process.
What is SOC 2?
SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2) is an audit framework from the AICPA, the US institute of certified public accountants. An independent CPA evaluates a service provider's controls against the Trust Services Criteria: security (mandatory) plus optionally availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.
The result is not a certificate but a detailed report: a Type I report assesses the design of controls at a point in time; a Type II report additionally assesses their operating effectiveness over a review period of typically 3 to 12 months. The report is usually shared confidentially with (prospective) customers.
How do ISO 27001 and SOC 2 differ?
The key differences at a glance:
- Type of proof: ISO 27001 is a certificate from an accredited body; SOC 2 is an attestation report from a CPA
- Subject of the audit: ISO 27001 audits the management system (ISMS); SOC 2 audits the controls of a specific service against the Trust Services Criteria
- Geographic focus: ISO 27001 is established internationally and in Europe; SOC 2 is the de-facto standard in the North American B2B market
- Validity: the ISO certificate runs 3 years with annual surveillance; SOC 2 reports are typically renewed annually
- Output: a short, publicly presentable certificate vs. an extensive, confidentially shared report
- Flexibility: SOC 2 lets you choose criteria and system boundaries; ISO 27001 prescribes the framework normatively
Which standard should you choose?
The decision is primarily a market question: if you sell to European customers, public sector, or regulated industries, ISO 27001 is hard to avoid — not least because NIS2 and procurement processes reference it. If you sell SaaS into the US market, you will sooner or later be asked for a SOC 2 Type II report.
Importantly, the underlying measures overlap heavily. Access control, encryption, incident management, change management, and vendor management all count toward both frameworks.
Can you combine ISO 27001 and SOC 2?
Yes — and for internationally growing vendors it is the norm. The most efficient approach is a shared control set mapped to both frameworks: every control and every piece of evidence is maintained once and reused in both audits.
That is exactly what Flux Platform is built for: implement controls once, map them to ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIS2, and GDPR, collect evidence automatically, and prepare it per framework for the audit.