The Importance of Regular IT Audits: Ensuring Compliance and Security

In 2021, a popular information technology (IT) management platform was breached, leaving almost 30 percent of organizations compromised and millions of individuals feeling the ripple effects of the incident. In turn, this widespread attack encouraged many organizations to reevaluate the security and compliance of their IT infrastructures.

And while an IT audit can give you a clear path to protect your organization from threats of bad actors, what does conducting one entail?

What You Need to Know:

What Is an IT Audit?

Think of an information technology audit like a check-up—much like a visit to the doctor or dentist. When conducted correctly, an audit investigates your IT infrastructure to help ensure the following is running smoothly:

• Systems, applications, and tech solutions
• The management of these systems
• The operation of your infrastructure
• The way data is used
• And any other related processes

The goal of information systems auditing is to see whether your existing IT infrastructure has full control of your organization’s assets, how well they’re protected, how the integrity of your data is maintained, and how well your IT helps you meet your business objectives.

What is an IT audit’s purpose?

So, what does an IT audit do? For starters, it’s a great way to keep your investments protected. Integrating new IT solutions can be costly. An IT audit evaluates technology to ensure its working properly, serving your end goals, and maintaining appropriate security protocols.

Additionally, an IT audit is designed to make the most of your solutions. Conducting regular audits is a useful way to identify inefficiencies, discover essential solutions, and remove irrelevant technologies.

IT auditing can be especially helpful for organizations in industries that must meet compliance requirements as they pertain to IT laws, standards, and policies.

Staying Compliant Through Information Systems Audits

A compliance audit is designed to ensure your organization meets the laws or regulations pertaining to its industry. Through a compliance audit, you can better understand what you’re getting right, discover potential vulnerabilities, and avoid penalties.

Standards and regulations you may choose to audit for include:

• The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
• State and Local Taxes
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
• Human Resources
• Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
• The Can-Spam Act
• Payroll
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
• The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA)
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• ISO 14001

Without recurring compliance audits, your organization could be subject to harsh fines and damage your reputation.

Maintaining Security Within Your IT Environment

While a compliance-focused IT audit is geared toward helping organizations meet industry requirements, a security audit is meant to protect companies from data breaches, malware, and other cyber security threats.

A security audit is the careful process of reviewing and analyzing your entire IT infrastructure to pinpoint vulnerabilities, find possible threats, and spot risky practices in your operations. The six-information technology audit and control areas include:

• Physical security
• Logical security
• Information security
• Change management
• Data backup and disaster recovery
• Incident management

While adopting new technologies is required for many organizations to remain competitive, this digital expansion is also responsible for a rise in cyber-attacks.

Recently, there’s been a significant increase in technology-driven crime, with the frequency of cyber-attacks increasing since the beginning of the pandemic.

What can a cybersecurity audit do?

• Routine security-focused information technology audits are a great way to evaluate your security policies and determine how much what technologies are needed to shield sensitive data from bad actors.
• A centralized information technology audit gives you a full understanding of how your IT infrastructure works, how your security solutions protect this infrastructure, and if security gaps are present in your systems, policies, and protocols.
• A security audit paints a clear view of your entire enterprise network infrastructure. This is helpful for your IT team when developing modern security strategies.

Safeguard Your System with Rocket IT

There’s too much at risk to leave security to chance. Rocket IT’s Ideal IT solution empowers businesses and the people that run them—with the IT audit steps to ensure industry compliance standards are met.

Through Ideal IT, organizations can build an IT strategy that accounts for current security regulations and streamlines the process to adapt to meet future standards.

Ready to learn how you can adopt innovations while maintaining compliance standards? Request a consultation today!