At Whistic, we work with a lot of companies that want to get started with vendor risk management but don’t know how. Many times, these companies didn’t even realize they were vulnerable in the areas of vendor risk management or supply chain risk management until a gap was uncovered during a general security audit. Internal security audits are well-known for being the turning point for many organizations towards a strategic vendor risk management strategy.
The importance of security audits
Every part of a modern business is audited, from the financials to management systems to resources. Cybersecurity is no different. Security audits thoroughly assess your team’s current cybersecurity and compliance programs to identify any gaps or holes in the system. They help identify areas of need and areas where your team excels. They also can help your team create a list of ‘must haves’ or ‘deal breakers’ to bring into conversations with vendors and partners when digital security and infrastructure comes into play.
How to conduct an audit
Security audits address all areas of a business’ InfoSec and cybersecurity strategy. Questions like ‘Is there a backup platform’ and ‘How often is it updated’ are common during a security audit. Many auditors also use a penetration test to identify very small security holes in third part platforms and vendors.
How often to conduct a security audit
Most organizations conduct ongoing routine audits in many parts of their businesses, and security should be no different. A best practice is to stick to a pretty frequent IT audit schedule since digital security is such a high priority for departments across an organization. At minimum, you should conduct a routine security audit twice a year. Some of the most diligent organizations might run them on a monthly or quarterly basis.
If your team is working specifically on uncovering cybersecurity threats or identifying gaps in your security and compliance structure, a special audit might be required. This type of audit is done out of the cycle and hones in on particularly weak or vulnerable systems.
How to streamline the audit process
As you can probably tell, conducting an internal security audit is no mean feat. But, in today’s modern area of digital threats and hackers, running these audits to identify areas of improvement is key. At Whistic, we’ve built a state-of-the-art program that fills in when businesses are lacking throughout the security process. This includes seamlessly filling in where vendor security processes fall short as well as automatically analyzing the results of a security audit to recommend best practices and next steps.
You can learn more about streamlining the security audit process by using the Whistic Platform.
