What is a Cyber Security Audit?

Having the right cyber security protocols, protections, and strategies in place is key to protecting your business online. This applies not only in terms of its online services, but also in protecting valuable finance and customer data, and reducing disruptions to day-to-day operations.

This is a core purpose of conducting a cyber security audit. It’s an opportunity to gain invaluable insights into your business’s network infrastructure, how well-guarded it is, and what can be done to bolster the strength of its security.

Read on to learn more about how the team at Setup4 conducts cyber security audits and how each step of the process is of great benefit to your business’s online protection.

Preparing Your Business for Cyber Security Risks

If you want to be well-positioned to respond to any of the cyber security risks that exist online, then you need to be prepared. The key to preparation is to conduct various cyber security risk assessments and then follow these up with a comprehensive security audit. 

These essential first steps will paint a clear and actionable picture of where your security efforts currently land and the steps needed to improve your security and better mitigate these risks.

We can help you prepare these through our risk assessment and cyber security services.

The Scope of a Cyber Security Audit

A cyber security audit aims to address four key areas of your business’s overall security posture. These are the foundation of the scope of a cyber security audit from Setup4. The four areas are:

1. Define the Threats

The first step in a cyber security audit is to determine the threats that could impact your business online. 

We focus on threats that could impact key targets such as your endpoint devices, email and cloud servers, your local IT infrastructure, the data you have (particularly sensitive and personal data) and your customers.

Common threats we account for include malware and virus programs, online scams (including phishing emails), ransomware, remote hack attempts, and other targeted actions such as denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks (DoS and DDoS, respectively).

2. Evaluate Your Security

Once we have a solid understanding of the threats that could negatively impact your business, we turn our attention to evaluating the state of your current cyber security.

To make these evaluations, we put your business’s IT systems through a series of practical tests that allow us to gauge just how effective your security is. 

This can include simulating common cyber attack strategies such as phishing scams and social engineering. We can also perform penetration tests where we see just how deep into your business’s IT network we can go before the breach is noticed.

These tests allow us to gain a deep understanding of your security and where the key areas of concern are. 

3. Assess the Likelihood of Cyber Threats

For this step, we take the previous threats that we identified for your business and rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 that denotes just how likely a specific threat is to occur. This allows us to optimise a responsive strategy that can respond to each respective threat appropriately.

4. Design a Defence Strategy

With each threat defined and its likelihood of occurrence assessed, as well as the current effectiveness of your security, we then help your business develop an appropriate defence strategy.

A good strategy will help you mitigate risks and be better prepared to respond if the risk does end up becoming a reality. Each defence strategy will differ depending on various aspects of your business, and we ensure to build bespoke solutions that will best serve your business’s online security.

Cyber Security Audit Frequency

To ensure you stay on top of your business’s cyber security needs, it’s best to conduct security audits on a consistent basis. A key recommendation is to have an audit performed every year. 

That way, you can track the progress of your cyber security efforts, see if anything still needs improvement, and whether there have been notable shifts in the rise of new online threats that need to be addressed.

Protect Your Business with a Setup4 Cyber Security Audit

If you’re due another security audit or are looking to perform your first one, the Setup4 team is here. Our knowledgeable cyber security auditors will help you identify any possible vulnerabilities or risks you weren’t previously aware of and set you up with solutions that offer genuine peace of mind.

We’re passionate about top-quality cyber security, providing our services to SME’s throughout Australia. To get started with us, get in touch today.