Network audits are an essential exercise as part of a robust security strategy. Regular reviews provide necessary insights that reveal your security posture and where you must make improvements so you can eliminate attack surfaces before threat actors can exploit them.

Regularly audits are no longer just an option because security threats are constantly evolving – just because you were able to tick the boxes on your last network security audit doesn’t mean you can take a break. By conducting regular audits, you identify rogue access points, shadow IT, and weaknesses in current protocols so you can augment your protection of mission critical data and applications.

The pitfalls of lax network security

If you fail to regularly audit your network security, vulnerabilities can go undetected, allowing bad actors to steal data, gain unauthorized access and wreak havoc on your systems. Without knowing your weaknesses, you raise the likelihood of a data breach because you can’t mitigate risk effectively, opening our organization to business disruptions that can lead to financial losses, legal and regulatory consequences, and damage to your reputation.

Because security threats are evolving rapidly, your security measures can become quickly outdated without a regular network audit.

The benefits of regular network audits

By conducting regular audits of your network security, you can refresh your security protocols to mitigate risk and reduce the likelihood of a data breach. Audits should inform updates to security policy to prevent unauthorized access to your systems, while also identifying unauthorized devices connecting to your network.

Network audits are a proactive measure in that they improve your ability to identify potential exposures before they cause damage – your risk of falling prey to a cyberattack falls dramatically if you can detect potential security vulnerabilities and address them early.

Auditing your network security helps you stay compliant with privacy legislation and other industry regulations, enabling you to avoid penalties and other financial consequences of non-compliance, including legal fees.

Know what you need to assess

If your network security audit is to be valuable, you need to know what needs to be assessed.

Every audit should have a clear set of objectives and scope, as well as an understanding of the required resources. By consulting with all stakeholders, you can establish a comprehensive checklist of what network elements must audited, including access management, firewalls and encryption methods.

Understanding why you’re assessing your network security is just as important: aside from identifying security risks, it’s an opportunity to test incident response and disaster recovery plans, as well as verify compliance.

By mapping out all your devices, software and connections across your entire network, you gather the necessary detailed information and map out all devices, software, and connections to establish the scope of your audit so that you conduct an effective risk assessment using a baseline for your current security posture. This assessment enables you to evaluate every potential attack scenario, areas of weakness such as unpatched systems, and how they might affect your business.

Testing is a critical part of your network security audit – it includes evaluating your firewall rules, vulnerability scanning and penetration testing, as well as establishing the effectiveness of your access management and encryption.

Your audit should generate a report that scores the various risks and makes recommendations as to what should be done about them, as well illustrating the consequences of inaction. Appropriate steps must not only be taken but verified so that you are confident they have been implemented correctly.  

Regularly conducting a comprehensive and effective network security audit can appear overwhelming, but a managed IT services expert with a focus on security can help you navigate the ins and outs, so you get the most from your auditing efforts.