Over the years, there have been a number of security breaches in organizations all over the world. This has further exacerbated with the advancement in technology.
If that was not enough, the start of a global pandemic has worked as a catalyst. During this era, cybercrime has seen a jump of approximately 400%.
You can go through a number of security guides available online and still nothing can ensure the security of your organization as accurately as a thorough security audit would do.
An IT security audit is a thorough evaluation of the security system of an organization. It is only through a complete security audit you can find and patch the vulnerabilities in your website. And keep hackers at bay. Through this article, we will discuss in detail everything you need to know about a security audit.
What is an IT security audit?
It is basically an assessment of an organization’s IT infrastructure including both hardware and software components. These include scanning the website for possible security loopholes and patching them.
An IT security audit also includes ethical hacking that launches a series of simulated cyberattacks against your website to test the existing security defense.
At last, a comprehensive report is generated after performing all the assessment and penetration tests. This report gives you an overview of all the vulnerabilities found on your website with recommendations to patch them.
This section will make it clear to you why conducting regular audits is healthy for a website:
- It checks your existing security system and helps you set a standard for your organization.
- It thwarts the attempts of potential hacks by discovering underlying security flaws in your website.
- It also checks if the IT infrastructure of your website is compliant with top regulatory bodies.
- It helps you in finding the lags in your organization (if any) regarding security training and awareness.
Types of IT security audit
You can categorize types of security audits in more than one way. Some of the most common categorizations are based on approach and methodology.
Based on Approach
- Black Box audit: In a black box audit, the auditing team only has the information that is publically available about the target environment. This type of audit will give you an insight into the reliability of your website’s security controls during an actual attack.
- White Box audit: In a white box audit, the auditing team will have as much information about the target as an employee of the organization. A white box audit will prepare your website to deal with insider threats.
- Grey Box audit: In a grey box audit, the auditing team is given the information equivalent to a motivated attacker. This information includes network diagrams, policy documents, and other important information.
Based on Methodology
- Penetration tests: It is a form of ethical hacking in which a pentester tests the existing security system of a website by launching a series of cyberattacks.
- Compliance audits: In this audit, only certain parameters are checked in order to see whether or not an organization is compliant with security standards.
- Risk Assessments: This is the analysis of components of an organization that may be under threat.
- Vulnerability Tests: In this audit, security scans are performed in order to find the security vulnerabilities of a website.
- Due Diligence Questionnaires: It is used to analyze and check the existing security standards of the organization.
How to Perform security audits manually?
So far, in this article, we have discussed security audits, their types, and their benefits. In this section, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of a manual security audit. Although we would suggest opting for a professional security audit service as it is way superior to a manual audit, especially if you’re not so security savvy. Additionally to this, you could also utilise the specialist who provide privacy & terms of service audit as they can provide the business with their skills in all things privacy which will protect your business further down the line. However, if you own a smaller business it may be worth only looking into hiring a security audit as they will be able to still bring a lot of safety aspects to your business.
1. Information Gathering
The first step of a manual security audit is information gathering. In this step, the auditor will gather all the necessary information about your organization that is important while conducting a security audit. Tools such as Nikto, Nmap, Testssl, etc; are used in this process.
2. Exploitation
After gathering the information on your website, the next step is to exploit that information in order to understand the severity of the existing vulnerabilities. Tools such as SQLmap, Burp Site, etc; are used in this process.
For more details on the process of a manual security audit, you can go through the related articles.
- Website Security Audit: Your Topmost Concern
- What is an IT Security Audit and How to Do It?
IT Security Audit by Professionals
Let’s face it, running a business is already much hassle, performing a security audit manually can be daunting to say the least. Further, manual security audits can turn into a disaster if not conducted carefully. This is why we always suggest taking help from a security expert. It might cost you a little but it is always better to be safe than be sorry.
Our best pick in VAPT service provider is Astra Security. Astra will ensure the security of your organization with more than 1250 active security tests, automated and manual. The intuitive and collaborative dashboard by Astra Security facilitates real-time vulnerability reporting with a commenting feature on each vulnerability that lets developers to work parallely and ask out their queries. It also has excellent customer support.
For more information on the security audits performed by Astra, you can visit their official website.
