What is a cybersecurity audit?
Let’s start by explaining what a cybersecurity audit is.
A cybersecurity audit is a comprehensive examination of an organisation’s information systems, policies, procedures and infrastructure to assess and ensure the effectiveness of its cybersecurity measures.
If you decide to conduct a cybersecurity audit, people doing it for you will try to find as many vulnerabilities in your systems as possible to identify different cyber threats and ways cybercriminals may hack your assets.
There are many different types of cybersecurity audits, but they all have a common goal – to identify vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and potential threats to the organisation’s information assets, and to recommend improvements and safeguards to mitigate those risks.
Simply put, cybersecurity audits allow you to stay safe and avoid cyberattacks. If you conduct them regularly, you can rest easy!
The role of cybersecurity audits in safeguarding your business
All cybersecurity audits play a pivotal role in safeguarding your business and its assets, as they provide a comprehensive evaluation of security measures you are using.
They allow for proactive identification of security vulnerabilities in your systems, for enhanced protection of sensitive data, compliance assurance that reduces the risk of legal and financial repercussions, identification of security risks and improvement of security processes and systems.
Such security controls are indispensable if you want your business to be save and your data to be protected. Statistics say that a cyberattack occurs roughly once every 39 seconds, while malware attacks cost companies an average of $2.6 million. Those two numbers are more than enough to convince everyone how important cybersecurity solutions really are!
Want to know more about cybersecurity that can help you secure your business? Check out these:
What does a cybersecurity audit cover?
A cybersecurity audit covers a wide range of areas within an organisation.
The specific components of a cybersecurity audit may vary based on the organisation’s size, industry, and the nature of its information systems, but there are some common elements typically covered in every cybersecurity assessment.
They include:
network security, meaning examination of firewalls, network controls, antivirus configurations and network monitoring;
data security, meaning examination of data encryption practices;
endpoint security, meaning evaluation of antivirus and anti-malware solutions on endpoints;
physical security, meaning evaluation of physical security measures to protect data centres and critical infrastructure;
system security, meaning evaluation of access controls;
operational security, covering security processes and policies.
The comprehensive process of cybersecurity auditing
While it’s really difficult to provide you with a detailed list of things to do as a part of a thorough cybersecurity audit as each of them is slightly different and depends both on the organisation and on the team performing it.
