One of the best ways to stay proactive when it comes to IT security for your business is to perform regular security audits. If you haven't implemented MFA or MDR yet, this is the best place to start. A security audit will simply identify these two points as the first place to focus your attention to improve your security posture.
Security audits can identify areas of weakness in your IT infrastructure that could be exploited by cybercriminals. The modern cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, with new security threats emerging frequently and regulatory requirements changing to address them. Therefore, the fight against constant threats is often considered one of the most demanding tasks of an organization.
What is a cybersecurity audit?
A cybersecurity audit provides a comprehensive assessment of your information systems to assess compliance and identify gaps in IT security. The audit process involves taking a close look at the company's digital assets and security controls to ensure that they meet the requirements of compliance standards. In addition to offering information about existing security vulnerabilities, a comprehensive audit also includes mitigating measures to reduce cyber threats.
How often should you schedule IT security audits?
Performing regular IT security audits is an important part of a cybersecurity program. The time between each audit is highly dependent on various factors, such as the size of your business and the complexity of your IT system. Some companies do this every 2 years but the best practice is once a year.
Why are IT security audits important?
An IT security audit will find weaknesses that need to be corrected within your IT environment. Taking care of these vulnerabilities in advance can save you a lot of trouble by helping you avoid a major attack on your systems.
Here are some of the main benefits of performing regular IT security audits on your business:
Limit downtime
Dealing with long periods of downtime in the workplace is always a frustrating experience, involving missed deadlines and loss of productivity. One way to limit downtime is to perform regular IT security audits to ensure that your system is always operating at an optimal level.
Reduce the risk of data breaches
A data breach can devastate your business and lead to significant fines if you don't take reasonable steps to secure your network. Often, these violations can also ruin your company's reputation. Being proactive by keeping up to date with new threats and performing regular IT security audits is a great way to secure your environment.
Maintain customer trust
Building long-term relationships with your customer base isn't possible if you constantly have to deal with cybersecurity incidents. Customers are much more likely to switch to a competitor if they don't trust you to handle their personal data. Performing IT security audits is a way to reenforce your IT systems and establish and maintain customer trust.
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What is the difference between cybersecurity audits and penetration tests?
A cybersecurity audit involves testing various digital assets for comprehensive risk assessments and identifying potential weaknesses. Compared to audit results, penetration testing performs a deeper assessment of the cybersecurity of internal systems by attempting to orchestrate an attack like a cybercriminal would. In doing so, a security analyst replicates various attack mechanisms used by hackers to determine if existing security controls can prevent an attack.
We offer 3 levels of analysis:
