Audit Risk Assessment Checklist For Amazon Web Services

Determine business risks related to AWS use and ensure they align with your security criteria for confidentiality, integrity and availability.

Assess the efficiency of your incident management processes. Determine whether they adhere to AWS security best practices and a shared responsibility model.

Inventory Management
Inventory can be an expensive and irreplaceable asset that poses a substantial liability to companies that rely on it, as per IMPO Mag US. Accounting standards mandate firms record and report inventory assets in their balance sheets – this information plays a key role in financial reporting processes as it determines profits announced to investors.

Warehouse theft is another inventory risk that businesses must take seriously. Employees may steal products from warehouses without an effective tracking system in place.

Maintaining safety stock can help your organic rankings and sales on Amazon from being negatively impacted by stockouts. In order to be effective at this, however, you need to know when the inventory levels drop too low, while being able to accurately forecast demand so as to prevent overstocking. Automated inventory management systems provide tracking services and can identify slow-moving or obsolete items to prevent costly product loss.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are digital advertising models that use a bidding auction to place ads in search engine result pages. This bidding auction takes into account keywords, click-through rate, quality score and other criteria; ultimately the goal of any PPC campaign is to drive visitors to a business’s website and convert users into customers.

PPC ads can be found everywhere from search engines and social media platforms to classified ad websites, but are typically organized into three main categories – paid search, display and automation. By having a clear structure for your campaigns, audits will become much simpler in the future.

An Amazon audit should take note of the current logging management strategy in place, specifically its security questions under AWS root accounts to prevent unauthorized access or the reseting of credentials that could give malicious actors entry to organizational information or environment. It also involves making sure an enterprise-wide monitoring solution exists to detect anomalous behavior promptly and respond accordingly.

Inventory Control Systems
Amazon’s inventory control systems help ensure all product arrives at its warehouse in good condition. These systems track product movements and alert staff when inventory has been altered or altered improperly – this helps minimize human error and protect against theft.

Inventory control is of critical importance in any retail business, including those selling online. A well-designed and implemented system can help cut costs while decreasing product losses and increasing profits.

Example: If a computer suggests there should be 1000 pairs of sunglasses in a store but there are only 980, that may be evidence of merchandise theft or loss. Conducting regular inventory audits can detect unexplained variations and reduce fraud risks.

Financial accounting rules stipulate that companies maintain physical records of all inventory. When any item goes missing or gets damaged, this must be recorded on their balance sheet as an inventory write-off – something which could ultimately alter reported profits for the firm.

Inventory Forecasting
Maintaining optimal inventory levels is essential to avoiding stockouts that result in lost sales, so inventory forecasting can be an invaluable tool in tracking consumer demand and knowing when it is necessary to order more stock. When conducting this exercise, all relevant parties – operations, finance, marketing and product development should collaborate to create the most accurate forecast possible.

Quantitative inventory forecasting relies heavily on historical data found in your point-of-sale system; however, this approach may no longer be as accurate in light of post-COVID consumer buying power changes. A qualitative approach provides more accurate predictions about consumer purchasing behavior to predict what you should purchase in future.

Review security logging practices of Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services to ensure policies and procedures for storage, protection, analysis and management of logs are in place. It would also be advisable to review AWS documentation such as developer guides or white papers for additional details that may come in handy during an audit.