Credit: Mohammad Rahmani
If you’re a business owner or manager, you understand just how important it is to protect your sensitive data, and one of the most important ways to do that is an IT security audit. These technical audits pinpoint exploitable security weaknesses in your technical infrastructure and can help prevent data breaches.
Once you have the information from the audit, you and your IT team can create a plan to protect your information and achieve compliance standards such as HIPAA, PCI, and NIST.
In this article, you’ll learn what IT security audits are, what your technical team looks for in their security audit checklist, and how working with a managed services provider helps make safeguarding your data stress-free.
What Is A Security Audit? Why Do I Need One?
As mentioned above, an IT security audit is an in-depth assessment of the security of your information system infrastructure. As a risk assessment, your audit spotlights both security risks and potential to improve on your security compliance.
As your MSP conducts the audit, they’ll be working from a comprehensive security audit checklist to help them spotlight any potential problems.
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What Is On a Security Audit Checklist?
When beginning the audit, your MSP should clearly define and look into:
- The scope of your audit, including devices and networks that need to be addressed
- A list of security threats, such as DDoS attacks
- An internal audit of your company’s policies and current security measures, to understand what precautions have already being taken
- Server configurations to ensure they’ve been properly configured
- Penetration testing to get a read on existing and potential vulnerabilities in your infrastructure, including removing unauthorized access
- And more
As your IT team conducts your audit, concerns, such as out-of-date antivirus and compromised machines, may warrant other types of security audits, like a cyber security audit.
Paired with this, network security audit tools examine all of the devices connected to a given network, and assess installed software. These same tools also check the status of your firewall controls, and other security essentials.
Though a comprehensive audit can help you get on the right track for data security and compliance, this isn’t a one-time fix. The most effective security measures are founded on regular audits. This way, you’ll stay up-to-date on emerging threats and implement the best security controls to address problems before they start.
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At the end of your audit, your MSP should provide a comprehensive audit report, and explain potential risks and how to address them. You should also keep your security audit logs for future visibility—you’ll know what problems arose when, and what changes were recommended.
Get the Most From Your Vulnerability Assessments With A Trusted MSP
Over 21 years in the IT business, here at Intellicomp we pride ourselves on providing premier IT services. Our proactive approach to IT management means you see improved performance and a significant reduction in IT issues.
With over 95% customer retention rate, we understand the importance of customer-first service. When you choose Intellicomp, you get a four-layer support and services team, offering specific levels of support from day-to-day helpdesk to teams dedicated to system maintenance.
Get the most out of your IT audit with a trusted MSP. Contact us today.
