NorthStar Education Services Receives SOC 2 Type II Attestation
by Hannah Grace Holladay / February 21st, 2022
NorthStar Education Services, a student financial aid and payment company, today announced that it has completed its SOC 2 Type II audit, performed by KirkpatrickPrice. This attestation provides evidence that NorthStar Education Services has a strong commitment to security and to delivering high-quality services to its clients by demonstrating that they have the necessary internal controls and processes in place.
A SOC 2 audit provides an independent, third-party validation that a service organization’s information security practices meet industry standards stipulated by the AICPA. During the audit, a service organization’s non-financial reporting controls as they relate to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of a system are tested. The SOC 2 report delivered by KirkpatrickPrice verifies the suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of NorthStar Education Services’s controls to meet the standards for these criteria.
Taige Thornton, President of NorthStar Education Services, said, “All organizations should ask for SOC reporting from their outsourced service vendors. Whether a vendor can provide a SOC report is a serious risk component that companies need to consider during any vendor due diligence analysis.”
“The SOC 2 audit is based on the Trust Services Criteria,” said Joseph Kirkpatrick, President of KirkpatrickPrice. “NorthStar Education Services delivers trust-based services to their clients, and by communicating the results of this audit, their clients can be assured of their reliance on NorthStar Education Services’s controls.”
About NorthStar Education Services
NorthStar Education Services is an affiliate of Ascendium Education Group. For 50 years, our focus has been to deliver industry leading tools to support educational accessibility and success through student loan repayment, employee benefit/payment assistance, next generation financial wellness and education loan refinancing programs.
About KirkpatrickPrice
KirkpatrickPrice is a licensed CPA firm, PCI QSA, and a HITRUST CSF Assessor, registered with the PCAOB, providing assurance services to over a thousand clients in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The firm has more than a decade of experience in information security by performing assessments, audits, and tests that strengthen information security practices and internal controls. KirkpatrickPrice most commonly performs assessments on SOC 1, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITRUST CSF, GDPR, ISO 27001, FISMA, and FERPA frameworks, as well as advanced-level penetration testing. For more information, visit https://kirkpatrickprice.com, follow KirkpatrickPrice on LinkedIn, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
