Someone needs to own the response to suspicious activity. Collecting logs gives you records to investigate. It does not mean anyone will notice a problem or act on it.
Start by separating three jobs: collecting useful records, detecting activity worth investigating and deciding what to do about it. A tool may help with each. An owner still needs to make sure the whole process works.
Pick an event you would want to know about
For example, a new administrator account appears without an approved request. Where would that event be recorded? Would an alert reach the right person? Could they work out whether the account was authorized?
Walk that path with the team. You may discover that the event never reaches your monitoring tool. Or that alerts go to someone who left. Either gap matters more than a dashboard showing that logging is switched on.
Make the handoff clear
- Who receives an alert?
- Who checks whether it needs action?
- Who covers for that person?
- How does an urgent issue reach someone able to respond?
- Where is the decision recorded?
If an outside provider handles monitoring, confirm what it watches and when. Find out whether it only sends notifications or can take agreed containment steps. Your team still needs to know what happens after a notification arrives.
You do not need to read every line by hand
Filters and alerts can help people focus on meaningful activity. The right mix of automated detection and human review depends on your systems and risks. Do not copy a daily manual-review promise into a policy if that is not the process you use.
Also check whether the monitoring itself has stopped working. A quiet alert queue can mean nothing concerning happened. It can also mean a data feed failed.
Keep evidence of the work, not just the settings
Useful evidence may include an alert and the reviewer’s conclusion. If follow-up was needed, link to the action and its outcome. A configuration screenshot alone does not show that someone investigated an event.
If you use a controlled test to check the handoff, label it as a test. Keep it separate from actual incident records. Do not create a fictional incident to fill an empty audit folder.
Where SOC 2 fits
The AICPA criteria address monitoring for unusual activity and analyzing whether it represents a security event. They also address evaluating events and acting when needed. That is more than retaining a pile of logs.
Start with one important event and verify the complete path. Then check whether the same handoff works for the other risks your monitoring is meant to cover.
Source
AICPA Trust Services Criteria: CC7.2 and CC7.3. The examples above illustrate a practical review; they are not a universal logging schedule.