Author: Balázs Boros

An IT security audit isn’t a box-ticking exercise. It’s a thorough, system-level assessment and clean-up across your entire digital environment: it uncovers hidden risks, improves process transparency, and shows how resilient the organization is against real-world attack methods. The goal is meaningful risk reduction while supporting business objectives (availability, confidentiality, integrity). The focus is not a list of issues but the practical business impact.

What an IT Security Audit Is - and Isn’t

An audit is an independent, evidence-based assessment across people, processes, and technology. It is not the same as a vulnerability scan or a penetration test - those are data-collection techniques. A full audit spans governance, policies and procedures, logging and monitoring, backup and recovery, incident response, supplier risk, and resilience. On the technical side we often break out the network layer; if you want to strengthen that specifically, our network audit is a solid starting point.

When Should You Initiate an Audit?

Launch an audit when substantial change is underway - cloud migration, a new business application, or an acquisition - because these typically introduce new exposures. It’s also warranted for NIS2/ISO 27001 or industry requirements, recurring incidents or suspicious activity, or when leadership needs a risk report and costed plan for the next period. A well-timed audit accelerates decisions by clarifying where intervention delivers the most value first.

Audit Types and Focus Areas

A compliance audit checks how controls align to NIS2, ISO/IEC 27001, or CIS Controls and whether policies and procedures are coherent. A technical audit focuses on configurations, hardening, vulnerabilities, and access hygiene - this is where a targeted network audit naturally fits. A process audit looks at incident response, change management, backup and recovery, and third-party onboarding, while a cloud audit evaluates identity and access management, risks around public resources, encryption, and logging.

Recommended Methodology

In practice, the best results come from a well-framed six-step process. During the kick-off and scoping we lock down objectives, systems and data classes in scope, timing, and responsibilities.

Next is the asset and data inventory, enriching CMDB/asset records with business criticality and data classification.

Evidence collection follows interviews, configuration exports, logs, vulnerability and access analyses, then risk assessment, where we quantify residual risk by likelihood and impact.

In the recommendations and roadmap phase we separate quick wins from tactical and strategic moves, and close with a concise executive summary that supports decisions and establishes KPI/KRI baselines.

To ensure continuity from plan to run, our IT security solutions service keeps risk trending down over time.

Common Findings

We frequently see administrative and remote access still lacking MFA, while OS, network device, and application updates lag. Backups often don’t follow the 3-2-1 rule, restore tests are rare, and immutability is missing, making recovery uncertain. Logging is patchy: audit logs are absent or retention is too short, and central correlation is incomplete, delaying early detection. Excessive spread of privileged rights and weak segregation of duties are common, and lateral movement between network segments is too easy.

In cloud estates, misconfiguration is typical: public resources exposed by accident, missing organization-wide encryption, or overly broad roles. Endpoint protection can be uneven, leaving EDR coverage gaps, while email authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) is too permissive and URL sandboxing inconsistent. In the supply chain, missing security SLAs and access limits increase third-party exposure.

Measurement: KPIs/KRIs and Dashboards

Mature security operations are measurable. Key metrics include patch MTTR for critical updates, EDR coverage and response speed, backup restore success rate, RPO/RTO attainment, MFA coverage for privileged accounts, and the robustness of break-glass procedures. Track the count and trend of critical vulnerabilities older than 30 days, email authentication posture, and user phishing indicators. We maintain these metrics day-to-day via our IT security solutions service.

NIS2 and the Role of the Audit

NIS2 expectations become real protection only when translated into concrete operational controls. The audit helps do exactly that: it breaks requirements into asset and exposure management, access control, incident response, logging and monitoring, business continuity, and supplier risk. The outcome is a clear gap analysis, an implementation roadmap, and a measurable improvement path with executive reporting.

A 30/60/90-Day Action Plan

In the first 30 days, focus on quick wins: mandate MFA for all admin and remote access, disable legacy protocols, close EDR coverage gaps, and review high-fidelity alerts. Align backups to the 3-2-1 rule, add immutability, and run regular restores, while tightening SPF/DKIM/DMARC policies to reduce email exposure.

Around day 60, stabilize processes: scheduled patching, documented exceptions for “special” systems, centralized logging with adequate retention and priority use cases, and a closed-loop vulnerability management cycle where remediation is verified.

By day 90, activate the incident response plan with a tabletop exercise and notification matrix; streamline IAM (role-based access, least privilege, PAM), strengthen network segmentation - e.g., remote admin via a dedicated jump host - and run a DR/BCP test validating RTO/RPO with feedback into planning.

How to Prepare for the Audit?

Preparation starts with a clear scope and priorities: rank business systems and classify data, provide log and configuration exports, grant temporary targeted (preferably read-only) access to auditors, and ready your documentation (policies, network diagrams, backup and incident plans). Build a RACI matrix clarifying responsibilities across IT, security, business, legal, and comms, and ensure encrypted sharing and data minimization.

Summary

A well-run audit isn’t a red/green grade, it’s a prioritized investment plan and improvement path that, embedded into operations, reduces risk sustainably. From assessment to daily operations, we see the program through with our IT security solutions service and where appropriate, we complement technical controls with cyber insurance so the organization stays predictable even on its worst day.