An IT Audit Checklist For IT Departments

With cybersecurity risks on the rise, conducting regular IT audits will help to protect your business against current threats.

An IT audit examines various aspects of your business, such as systems development processes, security measures and IT support services. This article aims to help you better comprehend its purpose and how you can conduct an IT audit yourself.

1. Review of Policies and Procedures
IT issues can have devastating repercussions for a business, from productivity loss to customer dissatisfaction. To safeguard against IT-related disruptions, business owners should conduct regular IT audits – these reviews can ensure the information systems of their company remain uncompromised, policies remain up-to-date, and regulations are followed as required.

Members of your IT department should develop an in-depth audit report detailing unbiased observations about the strengths and weaknesses of your ISMS framework and security controls, along with recommendations or corrective actions they deem necessary. All this should be documented using an internal audit checklist; such documents will serve as input to your organization’s management review where key findings will be discussed in depth.

2. Review of Security Policies
American’s are well known for having poor online hygiene practices, which is good news for hackers looking to target individuals but can spell disaster for businesses that are susceptible to security breaches and suffer as a result. Security breaches can result in loss of revenue, productivity issues or even lawsuits being filed against them.

Conducting an IT audit is the first step toward mitigating these risks. An internal IT audit checklist allows IT personnel to systematically examine existing procedures for weaknesses and development opportunities, while improving audit efficiency using automation tools such as checklists. For optimal effectiveness, audit checklists should be tailored specifically for business needs, industry standards and security regulations as well as updated regularly.

3. Review of Network Security
Cyberattacks cost companies an estimated annual cost of $10.5 trillion and IT problems can have devastating effects on productivity, reputation and compliance. Regular IT audits can help identify security weaknesses that expose your business to external threats.

An IT audit process involves dissecting your current IT setup to see whether or not it aligns with business objectives and identify areas for development opportunities. An internal IT audit checklist will help streamline this process while keeping things organized and making sure no important aspects are missed during auditing.

As part of your network review, you should also test data backups and assess physical security of IT equipment, as well as determine its age and how often replacement should occur.

4. Review of Backups
Maintaining an IT audit checklist allows you to evaluate your IT infrastructure and policies to determine their efficacy as well as conduct risk analyses and create an annual audit plan.

An effective IT audit requires an analysis of your backup systems as well as physical protection of data such as whether server rooms are locked and whether access requires password or badge authentication.

IT audits provide your company with peace of mind that its data is secure and that its infrastructure complies with regulations. Scheduling an IT audit with one of Australia’s 2019 Fastest Growing MSPs will help safeguard against data loss or other costly issues that can arise during its course; audit checklists provide invaluable help in streamlining the examination and guaranteeing everything is covered during an IT auditing exam.

5. Review of Hardware
An IT audit provides the opportunity to identify unnecessary equipment, unneeded software and operational risks from systems that aren’t adequately backed up. Furthermore, this process helps develop a strong disaster recovery plan as well as establish an annual budget for new hardware and software purchases.

IT asset inventory tracking is done with spreadsheets, with each piece of hardware (appliance, router, firewall, laptop, workstation, network printer and wireless controller) having its own unique sheet for identification and management purposes. Since 2015 no physical IT hardware inventory has been completed which compromises our ability to correlate change management processes with hardware data for tighter IT security controls in the corporation.

Establishing policies and SOPs for the administration and management of IT hardware asset inventory would enable seamless integration between IT Asset Management procedures, Change Management processes and Problem Resolution efforts – adhering to ITIL Service Management best practice principles and guidelines.