We’re proud to announce that Shift8 Web, operating under Star Dot Hosting Inc., has officially achieved SOC 2 Type II certification.
For anyone considering a new website project, platform migration, or retainer-based infrastructure support, this milestone isn’t just a formality. It’s a confirmation that the processes and systems we already follow are secure, scalable, and built to stand up to rigorous third-party scrutiny.
If you’re in a marketing, IT, or operational role looking to hire a development partner, here’s what this means for you.
What is SOC 2 Type II?
SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2) is a widely respected audit standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). It’s designed to evaluate how service organizations handle customer data in the context of five trust service principles: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.
You can read more about SOC 2 on the official AICPA website.
Type I audits assess whether controls are in place at a specific point in time. Type II, however, evaluates how well those controls perform over a defined period—six months in our case, from March 1 through August 31, 2024.
That means our systems, access controls, and internal processes were observed and verified over time, not just based on a single-day inspection.
Why It Matters When Hiring a Web Partner
When you hire a design and development agency, you’re trusting them with more than just aesthetics. Your agency partner often has access to admin credentials, live infrastructure, form submissions, user data, and deployment workflows.
If your project is tied to marketing goals, user experience improvements, lead generation, or revenue, then downtime, poor architecture, or sloppy access management can create major risk.
SOC 2 Type II certification signals that we build, deploy, and maintain systems with care—and that we’ve proven it under external scrutiny.
What the Audit Covered
Over the course of the audit, our firm’s controls were reviewed by a licensed CPA across areas like:
- Secure deployment workflows (version-controlled, tested, and logged)
- Access management protocols using private subnets and bastion-host enforcement
- SSH key enforcement (only 2048-bit RSA keys allowed)
- Role-based access for internal teams and clients
- Logging, monitoring, and alerting for infrastructure events
- Structured change management and rollback policies
- Daily backup and data recovery procedures
We’ve long followed these practices because they’re good engineering. The audit required us to formalize them, document the process, and prove that they’re repeatable and consistent.
What This Means for Clients
If you’re planning a new website, building a custom CMS, launching a digital platform, or just seeking a long-term support partner, this certification has tangible benefits:
Data is protected
We treat customer data, admin credentials, and infrastructure endpoints as assets—not afterthoughts. This applies whether you’re collecting form submissions, e-commerce transactions, or internal data.
Projects move fast without sacrificing process
Because our staging and production environments are set up for structured changes, we can move quickly with less risk of downtime or security drift.
Compliance is simpler
If your organization’s procurement, legal, or IT team requires vendor security questionnaires or assurance documentation, our SOC 2 Type II report is ready to go.
Support isn’t an afterthought
Our post-launch support isn’t just bug fixing. It includes monitored uptime, automated patching, access audits, and continuous improvement based on how your infrastructure is performing.
Our Services (Now with Audit-Backed Processes)
SOC 2 Type II doesn’t change what we offer—it just proves we do it well. Here’s how we support our clients:
- Custom WordPress and Laravel development for corporate and content-heavy websites
- Design systems that prioritize conversion, accessibility, and brand consistency
- Infrastructure configuration and management using cloud-based VPCs and secure deployment workflows
- Retainers for continuous support, including server health checks, uptime monitoring, security patching, and compliance alignment
- Digital platform builds that integrate with APIs, CRMs, and business operations
If your project involves sensitive data, uptime-sensitive content, or integration with internal systems, we’re ready to handle it securely.
Why We Invested in This Now
Our client base has grown to include more government, healthcare, and enterprise software clients—many of whom have strict security, privacy, and compliance requirements. Getting audited wasn’t something we did for optics. It’s something we did to align how we work with how our clients need us to work.
The audit forced us to think deeply about our infrastructure decisions, document our processes, and close the loop on practices that have long been in place.
It also supports how we scale. When a new client project starts, we now have a hardened baseline for how infrastructure is provisioned, access is granted, and deployments are handled—without reinventing the wheel every time.
Where You Go From Here
If you’re in the early stages of vendor evaluation, or if you’re mid-project and thinking about long-term support or redevelopment, consider how this certification fits into your risk assessment.
We’re here to help if you:
- Need to rebuild your website on a more secure, modern stack
- Want to offload infrastructure support to a team with process-driven controls
- Are facing internal security reviews and need a partner who understands your needs
- Are launching a campaign and want to know your site will scale and stay live
- Want to work with a design and dev team that understands governance, not just graphics
You don’t have to choose between creative and compliant. You can have both.
Let’s Talk
Whether you need a complete website rebuild, platform migration, or long-term infrastructure support, our SOC 2 Type II certification gives you one more reason to choose Shift8 Web as your agency partner.
We combine design and development with enterprise-ready operational discipline. And we’re happy to talk through your goals, questions, or upcoming project needs.