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Cybersecurity audits are key to maintaining compliance with regulations and upholding a strong security posture. They evaluate your organization’s systems, identify vulnerabilities, and offer the insights you need to optimize security. But there are many different kinds to choose from, depending on your needs.
Understanding the different types of security audits available lets you choose the right approach to protect your data and alleviate potential risks.
What Is Auditing in Security?
A cybersecurity audit is a complete assessment of your organization's security posture, gauging how well your policies, controls, and procedures meet established security standards.
Audits cover the technical aspects of security (like firewalls) and human risks (like phishing). This holistic view covers all the bases to assess how you handle sensitive information, address vulnerabilities, and manage access controls throughout your organization.
Some companies are legally required to undergo routine security audits for a few reasons, including:
- Industry regulations: Certain industries have mandatory security audit requirements. For example, financial services, like banks and credit unions, operate under regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and need to remain compliant.
- Company size and type: Larger and public companies often have to monitor their security posture because they access and store more data.
- Data handling: Companies that process, store, or transmit sensitive data, like personal or financial information, are required or strongly encouraged to perform security audits.
- Contractual obligations: Some business contracts, especially with large clients or government entities, may require regular audits.
- Geographic location: Different countries and regions have varying data protection and security requirements.
All organizations, regardless of size or industry, should have regular security audits, including software security audits — even if it’s not mandatory. The effort is warranted to assess your risk exposure and find the gaps in your security posture to keep company and customer data safe.
Types of Cybersecurity Audits
Different audits focus on various aspects of your organization’s security posture to help identify vulnerabilities, ensure compliance, and protect sensitive data. Here’s a guide to each one:
Vulnerability Assessments
Vulnerability assessments uncover and evaluate risks in your systems, networks, and applications. These audits often use automated technologies to check for known vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software or exposed services.
By providing a clear picture of potential risks, vulnerability assessments create a strong foundation for improving security posture. This is especially the case when the results are correlated with business context, allowing your team to focus on the most important issues first and build a full vulnerability management lifecycle.
Penetration Testing
Penetration testing simulates real-world attacks to test how your security protections perform and then provides recommendations for improvement. These tests are particularly beneficial if your company handles sensitive data, like a financial institution, healthcare provider, or technology firm, because you’re more susceptible to being targeted by hackers — and data breaches have severe financial or legal consequences.
Penetration testing may uncover flaws like misconfigurations, access control issues, unpatched vulnerabilities, weak passwords, and insecure APIs. Spotting them sets you up for stronger systems and better test results in the future.
There are three main types of penetration tests:
- White box testing: Here, the pentester has full knowledge of your system, including source code, network diagrams, and configuration files. This approach uncovers vulnerabilities that might not be visible from the outside, simulating an insider threat scenario. It’s also the fastest of the three types of penetration testing.
- Black box testing: In this approach, the pentester has no prior knowledge of your system, mimicking an external attacker. This method evaluates security controls against outside threats. It’s the most thorough option, but it’s also the most expensive.
- Grey box testing: The penetration tester has partial knowledge of your system, balancing the in-depth analysis of white box testing and the external perspective of black box testing. It’s a good option if you want the best of both worlds.
Compliance Audits
Security audits for compliance make sure your organization meets specific regulatory standards and industry requirements, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for data protection, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare privacy, or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for payment card security.
These audits help you integrate regulatory requirements throughout your security strategy. Remember to document your efforts to demonstrate due diligence, as organizations may check for proof of compliance during regulatory investigations or in the aftermath of a security breach.
To support these efforts, Legit Security has launched a Compliance and Attestation Trust Center, which streamlines and documents compliance processes for you, making it easier to meet regulatory obligations.
Information Management Audits
Information management audits analyze your IT infrastructure, including network configurations, software applications, and data management procedures. They check that all systems function properly and conform to corporate policies and external standards.
By thoroughly analyzing system components and their interactions, auditors identify weaknesses that might go unnoticed in more specialized assessments. This approach uncovers inefficiencies, security vulnerabilities, and possible points of failure across the entire IT ecosystem.
Internal Versus External Cybersecurity Audits
When considering how to perform a security audit, you have two options: internal and external. It’s a good idea to employ both for a more holistic view of your security posture.
Internal audits come from your organization's IT security team or internal auditors. They’re an excellent approach to monitor your security posture, remediate problems promptly, and assure compliance with internal policies. You remain proactive while continuously improving security measures. Plus, team members are familiar with your infrastructure, making it easier for them to spot something amiss.
External audits are carried out by impartial third-party professionals, offering a more objective assessment. They give you an unbiased perspective to confirm compliance with industry standards and determine how successfully your security procedures protect against external threats — critical for maintaining trust with clients and stakeholders.
5 Best Practices for Conducting Cybersecurity Audits
Follow these best practices to get the most out of your cybersecurity audit:
1. Conduct Regular Audits
By scheduling security audits semi-annually or annually, you can identify weaknesses before they become significant problems. This proactive strategy keeps your systems safe and compliant with industry standards.
2. Involve Key Stakeholders
Engaging key stakeholders from multiple departments—like IT, compliance, and business professionals—ensures that the cybersecurity audit addresses all relevant areas. These people understand the risks and regulations specific to their domains, and their feedback can provide useful information for solving security risks more effectively.
3. Leverage External Auditors
Bring in external auditors to independently assess your procedures. They can discover blind spots and make recommendations that the internal team may overlook. External audits also add credibility to your security posture, particularly when demonstrating compliance to clients and regulators.
4. Document and Review Findings
Always document the findings from your audits and review them thoroughly. This helps you track progress, prioritize remediation efforts, and make informed decisions about future security investments. A well-documented audit process also proves your commitment to security and compliance.
5. Implement Continuous Monitoring
Cybersecurity threats evolve rapidly. Implement continuous monitoring throughout your systems to detect and respond to new vulnerabilities as they arise, keeping your security posture strong between scheduled audits. Regularly incorporating security testing into your development process also improves overall readiness.
Strengthen Your Practices With Legit Security
Whether it’s vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, or compliance, each audit type plays a critical role in defending against evolving threats.
Legit Security’s ASPM platform can help ease and streamline the audit process.
With Legit Security, you gain complete visibility into your application security posture, facilitating compliance and prioritizing risks across your software development lifecycle.
Discover how Legit Security can help you conduct effective audits and strengthen your security program today.