Types of Security Audit Every Business Should Conduct
Security audit refers to an organized analysis of the security of the organization’s information system, thereby examining how the company adheres to the established criteria of the firm. By conducting a thorough audit of the business organization, its security, the firm’s physical conformation, information handling process, environment, user practices, etc are analyzed.
The need for security audit
The reasons to perform a security audit includes:
- Identification of the security issues and any system weakness to rectify the problem
- To set a security baseline for comparing the future audits.
- To match with the company’s internal organization’s security policies.
- It also includes meeting the external regulatory needs of the company
- To analyze if the security training provided is sufficient
- To identify the unnecessary resources of the company.
The different types of a security audit that every company must conduct includes:
IT Controls Audit
This is the most common type of security audit conducted in every business firm. The main intention of IT controls Audit is to assist the business firms to identify their IT policies and to calculate and prioritize various tasks about cybersecurity. When such audits are conducted periodically, they allow the company to analyze its ability to respond to any particular type of issue that might arise.
Vulnerability Assessment for Secure Network
A vulnerability assessment is conducted to unveil the flaws that could be present in the designs, companies’ security procedures, certain internal controls, etc.
The objective of this assessment is to scan the drawbacks present in the security system and it draws a comparison with the present best practices of the current industries. Modifications can be done with the security protocols for the benefit of the company to prevent cyber attacks.
The vulnerability assessment is performed by the Company’s IT team or experts from outside will be assigned. They will determine if there are any flaws in the security system that could be a threat to the system. They will make use of a specific software scan to check for any issues.
The scan will search for any loopholes in cybersecurity like testing the network, firewall to figure out any specific needs that have to be addressed. The vulnerability assessment helps the companies to identify and rectify any flaws before getting access by the hackers.
Penetration test
In the penetration test, an expert will perform like a hacker striving to breach the security system. This gives insight and exposes the weaknesses of the infrastructure, mobile platforms, cloud technology, and other operating systems. Here the latest hacking techniques are used. The various kinds of penetration tests are internal systems, external systems, hybrid penetration. The internal system of penetration tests focuses on the internal system, while the external penetration has their focus on external assets which are exposed publicly. The hybrid penetration includes both internal as well as external penetration tests.
Audit Compliance
A compliance audit is necessary for those businesses areas where they have to comply with particular regulations, healthcare, banking, government, etc. The main intention of the company is to watch out if the organization meets the norms that are set forth to do business. Those companies who do not perform audit compliance are liable to penalties and the customers will be diverted.
The clients will begin searching for their needs somewhere else. A business organization that has its business running in the European Union must undergo compliance auditing to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. The audit compliance intends to examine the policies of the company, get access to the controls, and check if the regulations are being executed in the right manner.
Some of the best practices for cybersecurity audits are:
- To keep the employees informed about the audit that would take place. There must be transparency in the organization’s operations. The time that has been chosen must be convenient to all the team members.
- It would be the best decision to hire an external auditor as the internal auditors may not be comfortable talking about their company’s vulnerability.
- There must be consistent security audits, which means the audit must be conducted regularly.
Final Thoughts
The security audits conducted in a company measures the performance of the company over a set of rules and regulations that have been set by the company to detect if the company has confronted the list of criteria that has been established. Security audit helps to protect the data, it enables the creation of new security policies, to identify the security loopholes if any, and to keep a track of the efficiency of the security strategies.
