A cyber security audit is specifically designed to be an overall comprehensive examination and evaluation of your company’s IT infrastructure, including but not limited to its computer systems. It identifies vulnerabilities and threats, revealing hidden threats and weaknesses. Policies such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) may impose heavy penalties if a breach results in compromised personal information. An audit is often carried out to find areas of weakness that may lead to external threats. It should also identify any potential internal threats, although these are less likely to be deployed in a cyber attack. Most modern companies carry out cyber security audits regularly.
Cyber Audits to Check and Mitigate Risk
The risks of cyber attacks on your company’s confidential information include data theft from network attacks, external threats (such as hackers), employee negligence or malicious software, or corrupting software. A thorough and complete cybersecurity audit should first determine the cause of the problem. Some causes, such as employee misuse of computer systems, are easy to trace, whereas others, such as vulnerabilities in the network or software, are harder to investigate. If it is determined that a problem in one place is to blame for a series of cyberattacks originating from another part of the network, the attackers may be linked and dealt with accordingly.
Setting Up the Auditing Parameters
There are some key pieces of advice that companies can follow to prepare for a cybersecurity audit. The first is to read the general data protection regulation or GDPR carefully. This will help you to understand how it applies to your business and help you establish what your obligations are under laws. One important part of the regulations regards the identification and recording of a customer’s personal information. You will need to make arrangements to have this data removed from websites that could damage your business reputation. Companies may also need to ensure that the people who gained access to the customer’s data did not have appropriate authorization.
Next, you need to identify the scope of the cyber-security audits you expect to carry out. It is important to evaluate your organization’s risks and develop a plan to minimize these risks. The examinations’ scope may include examining the servers’ configuration, examining the level of service that customers receive, and even analyzing how data is stored and communicated. The content will vary according to the nature of the actual risk; however, there will generally be one scope covering all of the audit’s primary objectives.
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