The Trust Reports contain programmatically-validated information (basically: Vanta's code says the control was in place continuously.)
There's (obviously) pros and cons of trusting a software provider (like Vanta) to validate technical configuration compared to trusting a human auditor to do the same.
Our bet with Trust Reports is that for some cases, having software do the checking and validation continuously is better than having a human auditor do it once a year.
We work with companies doing B2B sales and looking for help with compliance certifications like ISO 27001 and SOC 2. Some folks come to us early but most come with a deal on the line — which is to say, this is a process you can start “just in time” if you must.
From what I’ve seen, saying “no I won’t go through your security review process” is an (obvious) dealbreaker, but there’s a lot of ways to get through that process: ISO cert, SOC 2, the promise to get either of those certs by your go-live/implementation date, security questionnaire hell, etc.
As mentioned previously, ISO is preferred by European companies; SOC 2 is more likely to be mandated by American companies, and you’re likely to get pretty far, even in Europe, on just a SOC 2. If I had to construct the situation that’s most likely to be deal-breaking, it’d be an old-school European company that’s operating off a rigid flow chart: “if no ISO 27001 cert, go back to start. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.”
A few folks have mentioned cost (dollar and organizational) — ymmv and/but the cost of obtaining ISO 27001 certification varies with the number of employees, say $10-20k for smaller companies. Implementing ISO 27001 and an ISMS can be blitzed by small teams in a few weeks but probably will take a couple of months to a year for larger organizations.
(And we’d love to help if you decide to pursue this at Vanta etc etc)
The Trust Reports contain programmatically-validated information (basically: Vanta's code says the control was in place continuously.)
There's (obviously) pros and cons of trusting a software provider (like Vanta) to validate technical configuration compared to trusting a human auditor to do the same.
Our bet with Trust Reports is that for some cases, having software do the checking and validation continuously is better than having a human auditor do it once a year.