IT Audit General Controls Checklist

IT General Controls (ITGCs) are required by an organization in order to rely on information systems for financial reporting, making them a common target of audit.

Assessing and tracking ITGC can be daunting without proper tools, so the key to successfully undertaking such assessments and monitoring is selecting an ITGC framework as soon as possible.

1. Risk Assessment

No matter if your goal is cybersecurity or compliance, the first step should always be an assessment of current risk factors. This will allow you to develop an ongoing improvement strategy to keep up with emerging threats.

An assessment should cover everything from access control, audit and accountability, awareness and training as well as configuration management, maintenance and media protection to identification and authentication, incident response, internal/external boundaries of your information systems and more.

Your assessment should identify any gaps in your current cybersecurity measures, making remediating them for NIST compliance much simpler. Assign a priority level to each gap and create a remediation plan accordingly; use risk analysis results to assess which parts of IT infrastructure are most vulnerable, which will ensure adequate protections are in place against SOX ITGC attacks.

2. Policy and Procedure

As organizations assess and address risks, they must also establish and monitor security protocols. This may include installing physical access controls, setting data processing procedures, and developing an incident response process. Policies and procedures should be documented and tracked centrally for audit purposes as evidence of compliance.

These processes should also include tools for trends/variance detection to detect unusual behavior, such as an unexpected increase in log-in attempts. More sophisticated processors may look for attack signatures indicating attempts by an unauthorized individual or group to gain entry to information systems.

Additionally, organizations must establish system boundaries and outline their scope of compliance. When doing this, ensure all elements of your company’s infrastructure, including third-party contractors and business partners are included when considering what steps should be taken towards becoming compliant. This may include providing additional training courses or strengthening physical access control or updating media protection processes as part of this effort.

3. Monitoring

Once your policies and procedures are in place, it’s time to start monitoring them. This process will allow you to quickly recognize issues/threats as they arise while also making it easier for external auditors to assess compliance.

Establish a team to implement IT general controls. Preferably, this should be a central group that oversees them all – this will keep NIST compliance efforts on track while offering consistent oversight.

Make sure your progress is tracked through reports. These reports can then serve as evidence for NIST compliance audits. Sprinto offers NIST compliance solutions such as gap analysis, readiness assessment and control monitoring modules which automate this evidence collection process, speeding up your compliance journey while decreasing time needed for internal and 3rd party audits resulting in greater cost savings for your business.

4. Automation

As businesses expand, their infrastructure must adjust to accommodate emerging technologies and meet customer demands. Their security policy must adapt accordingly; monitoring is crucial in making sure policies are being met effectively – security assessments and risk management systems can assist this process.

Maintaining data safety requires using a least privilege model for CUI, to prevent unauthorized users from accessing and editing information. Furthermore, strong authentication controls are needed. This is particularly relevant in cloud environments with multiple layers of security protection.

Implementing a scalable NIST compliance program can help your organization meet its goals more easily. Sprinto’s smart NIST software automates and streamlines this journey – offering risk assessment, readiness assessments and gap analyses modules for an easy experience; plus real-time risk monitoring to track incidents and document evidence.