Across the board, so many types of organizations today face an elevated level of cybersecurity threats and similar types of IT risks. In addition to more traditional areas of computing security like trying to block malicious websites and emails, organizations also have to deal with areas like cloud network security, particularly with more employees working from home.
But you don’t have to be an IT expert to improve information security. The internal audit function can play a leading role in improving an organization’s data security and related areas of risk management. Much as internal audit teams provide assurance in other areas like financial risk and compliance risk, they can do so with IT or cybersecurity risk.
As we’ll dive into in this article, IT teams and CISOs can still drive the appropriate strategy, in terms of establishing network access policies, but internal audit departments can conduct IT audits to then make sure the proper protocols are being carried out. Internal auditors can also collaborate with other business units to help ensure everyone’s implementing appropriate internal controls and help stakeholders understand where the most critical risks exist.
Plus, by conducting internal audit activities on an ongoing basis, they can provide continuous risk assessments to help organizations keep up with the evolving nature of cybersecurity threats.
Conducting IT audits
One of the most important ways that internal audit teams can help manage IT risks is by conducting a comprehensive IT audit. While this type of audit risk assessment can go in many different directions, some of the areas an audit plan might cover include:
- Inventorying IT assets, such as to help IT teams keep track of security updates and device permissioning
- Reviewing work-from-home policies as they relate to network infrastructure access and device usage
- Coordinating with IT and other departments on incident response procedures, such as notifying clients about a breach
- Reviewing the results of security practices like penetration testing
