Achieving SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2) compliance is often a prerequisite for doing business with security-conscious enterprises. SOC 2 focuses on five Trust Services Criteria: Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy.
NetBird, an open-source Zero Trust Networking platform, provides a suite of features that directly address these criteria, particularly the Security and Confidentiality pillars. By shifting from traditional VPNs to an identity-aware mesh network, NetBird helps companies automate and enforce the technical controls that auditors look for.
Zero Trust Access and Least Privilege (Security)
One of the core requirements of SOC 2 is ensuring that access to sensitive data is restricted to authorized users. While traditional VPNs often grant flat network access, NetBird allows you to define policies based on peer groups. For example, a developer can be allowed access to a staging environment while being strictly blocked from the production database unless explicitly authorized.
By integrating with Identity Providers (IdPs) such as Okta, Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), and Google Workspace, network access is directly tied to a user’s corporate identity. When an employee leaves the company and is deactivated in the IdP, their network access is instantly revoked, satisfying the SOC 2 Termination control.
Device Posture and Health (Security)
SOC 2 requires organizations to ensure that only authorized and policy-compliant devices interact with systems. NetBird supports this through:
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Posture Checks
Enforce security requirements before a connection is established. Devices can be required to have a firewall enabled, run a specific OS version, or have an active EDR agent such as SentinelOne or CrowdStrike. -
Continuous Authentication
Unlike traditional VPNs that authenticate once at login, NetBird can require periodic re-authentication. This helps ensure that sessions are not hijacked and that devices remain compliant throughout their connection.
Data Encryption in Transit (Confidentiality)
To meet the Confidentiality criteria, data must be protected while traversing untrusted networks such as home Wi-Fi or the public internet.
NetBird is built on WireGuard, a modern VPN protocol that provides state-of-the-art cryptography. All traffic between peers is end-to-end encrypted, meaning even the NetBird management plane cannot inspect customer data.
With its peer-to-peer architecture, NetBird eliminates the need for a central VPN gateway. Direct tunnels between devices reduce the attack surface and help ensure data remains within a controlled perimeter.
Comprehensive Audit Trails (Processing Integrity)
SOC 2 places strong emphasis on monitoring and logging. Auditors often ask questions such as: Who accessed the production server last Tuesday?
NetBird logs every connection event, policy change, and user login, including timestamps, source IPs, and associated identities.
For advanced compliance requirements, NetBird can stream logs to external SIEM platforms, centralizing security telemetry and making it easier to demonstrate proactive monitoring during audits.
Deployment Flexibility (Availability and Privacy)
For organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, such as EU companies subject to GDPR or SOC 2 Privacy controls, data location is critical.
NetBird offers a self-hosted deployment option, allowing management and signaling components to run on customer-controlled infrastructure. This ensures that metadata and configuration data remain within the organization’s environment, providing a higher level of infrastructure control valued by auditors.
Summary
NetBird simplifies the path to SOC 2 compliance by replacing legacy VPN architectures with a Zero Trust overlay network. It ensures that every connection is:
- authenticated via an Identity Provider,
- authorized through granular access policies,
- encrypted end-to-end using WireGuard.
By implementing NetBird, organizations can automate key compliance controls:
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Access Control
Transitioning from broad network access to least-privilege micro-segmentation. -
Auditability
Maintaining a centralized and immutable log of network activity and policy changes. -
Device Trust
Enforcing device health and security posture checks before granting access.