Cyber Security Audit: The Importance of Assessing Your IT Infrastructure

Cyber security is a key aspect of all IT operations. It ensures that your business, data, and digital processes are all protected from harmful software and hacking attempts. To make sure that your cyber security is up to scratch, you will need a cyber security audit.

At CAB IT, we offer IT and cyber security support, including audits, to Bristol and the South West – helping you to enhance your online security presence. In this article, we’ll discuss what a cyber security audit is, how often to do one, and the benefits they provide.

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What is a Cyber Security Audit?

A cyber security audit is an investigation into your IT infrastructure. It reviews and assesses your current processes, helping to identify vulnerabilities, threats, and high-risk practices.

A cyber security audit will result in a report that advises you on the next steps you need to take to improve the safety of your IT infrastructure. This can include an analysis of any current weaknesses and threats such as rootkits or malware, an action plan for how to resolve your current issues, and an implementation roadmap for future security measures. It can also help you to formulate a plan for what to do should a breach occur, helping you to mitigate the potential damages.

Getting your cyber security audited by a third party provides integrity to the report, showing your stakeholders that your systems can be trusted. Additionally, it gives you a second pair of expert eyes that can see problems internal teams might not.

Audits are one step toward best IT security practices – discover other measures you can take >

How Often should Cyber Security Audits be Performed?

Cyber threats are constantly evolving, so your cyber security needs to change to match. However, performing a fresh audit every time changes occur would not only be costly – it would be impossible, as by the time the audit is done, a new one would already be needed.

Instead, a cyber security audit should be performed at least once a year, or when any major changes to your IT infrastructure occur. Doing a new audit yearly keeps your business protected and provides strategy to your cyber security efforts, while doing one when you modify your IT infrastructure ensures the changes you make don’t create new security concerns.

The best way to tell when you should perform a cyber security audit is by looking at their purpose: to find flaws in your cyber security, and to inform a strategy to resolve these flaws while protecting against future threats.

This means that a new cyber security audit should only be performed when there are significant changes outside of the scope of your predictions, such as a business change or an upset in the industry, or when enough time has passed and you need to make sure you’re still on track.

If you think you might need a cyber security audit for your business, get in touch.

Why is it Important to do Regular Cyber Security Audits?

First and foremost, data protection regulations are a crucial component for any business involving data, which is pretty much all of them. GDPR and other regulations around the world help to protect consumer data and rights, so being compliant with their requirements is a must to prevent data breaches and costly fines.

Another reason you may need to do regular cyber security audits is due to Cyber Essentials. Some contracts, government ones in particular, often require a Cyber Essentials + certification. A cyber security audit can help you to achieve and keep this rating.

Keeping your IT infrastructure’s safety in check also helps to limit the scale of data breaches, and make it harder for them to occur in the first place. Cyber security audits help to expose new system weaknesses from patches, discover zero-day exploits, and mitigate the threat of new malicious software.

The Benefits of a Cyber Security Audit

Performing a cyber security audit also comes with a number of benefits to your business, including:

Protecting your data and assets
Highlighting areas where training is needed e.g. educating your staff to spot and manage phishing threats
Identifying weak point in your current cyber security strategy
Creating a bespoke plan of action
Offering support in critical areas
Finding and resolving the highest risk factors
Ensuring compliancy

By benefitting from these elements, you put your business in a position where it can operate unhindered by the threat of cyber-attacks. Furthermore, it shows stakeholders and prospective clients that you can be trusted, increasing your chances of gaining and keeping their business.

How to Perform a Cyber Security Audit

While you’ll need a dedicated IT support team to actually perform your cyber security audit as they will have the technical knowledge and skills required, it can be useful to know what may be involved. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to perform a cyber security audit.

Create an outline

First, you need to understand what the scope of the audit will be. This means analysis the regulatory and compliance needs of your business; finding out what requirements you need to reach your certifications; and gaining an understanding of what data, hardware, and software you use.

Analyse your infrastructure

Once the outline has been made, each step can be put into action, analysing your current methods and infrastructure. This can check for vulnerabilities to things like DDoS attacks, malware, and phishing attempts. It can also find places that your hardware and programs may need improvement, such as due to outdated operating systems that are no longer receiving security updates.

Create an action plan

With the scope and details in mind, you can now make an action plan to enhance your IT infrastructure. This can include new security firmware and measures, hardware upgrades, and staff training to increase their awareness of threats and social engineering attempts.

The extent of this plan will depend on your business, but getting a comprehensive overview of your current systems and measures you can take to improve them will safeguard your business – now and in the future.

Using In-House vs External Cyber Security Experts

When you want to initiate your cyber security audit, you’ll want to know whether to use an internal team or an outsourced one. Each have their benefits when it comes to IT support, but for cyber security audits, an external team are often the way to go.

Outsourced cyber security experts provide a new perspective, offering benefits like:

Insight into different ways to enhance your IT infrastructure
Experience in delivering cyber security audits
Dedicated resources to provide your audit as quickly and efficiently as possible
24/7 support throughout your cyber security audit and beyond

Explore more differences between internal and outsourced IT support >

Comprehensive Cyber Security Audits from CAB IT

Performing periodic cyber security audits will give you the greatest insight into how your business’s security is compared to the current level of threats you face. Then, you can use an IT and security support specialist to enhance your systems to quash any concerns. At CAB IT, we offer both audits and comprehensive support, helping you to safeguard your business.

To find out more about our cyber security audits and services, check out our cyber security page or get in touch – we’re always happy to help. Otherwise, learn more about digital security and IT best practices with some of our related blogs.

Keep up to date on cyber threats by reading our article on phishing >

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