What makes SaaS audits different
Most of what a SaaS company protects lives in someone else’s data center. The audit therefore turns on how you configure and operate cloud services, how code gets from a developer’s laptop to production, and how you know when something has gone wrong. An auditor who asks to see the firewall rack is auditing the wrong things.
RiskZero auditors for SaaS engagements have hands-on experience of cloud platforms and modern engineering practice. They can read a Terraform plan, understand what a branch protection rule does, and know the difference between an alert that fires and one that someone acts on.
How we scope the audit
We typically scope the certification around the platform, the engineering and operations teams that build and run it, and the corporate functions that support them: people operations, IT, and leadership. Customer-facing teams are included where they access customer data. Sub-processors such as cloud providers, payment processors, and support tooling are addressed through supplier controls rather than being audited directly.
Evidence we typically examine
- Cloud account structure, identity federation, and MFA enforcement
- Infrastructure as code, change history, and peer review records
- CI/CD pipeline controls, dependency scanning, and secrets handling
- Vulnerability management, patch timelines, and penetration test follow-up
- Logging coverage, alert routing, and incident tickets from real events
- Backup configuration and evidence of restore tests
- Vendor risk reviews and data processing agreements with sub-processors
- Onboarding and offboarding records, background checks, and training completion
Timing
SaaS companies with an existing security program are often the fastest to certify. Where a compliance automation platform is in use, the evidence collection is largely done; the audit then focuses on whether the controls the platform reports as passing are actually effective.