Security Auditing

A security audit is an independent, evidence-based review of whether your security controls work in practice. It examines system settings, access rights, network rules and day-to-day procedures, and checks them against recognized benchmarks. Management gets a candid view of where protection is strong and where it is weaker than everyone assumed.

Security audit or compliance audit?

The two are related but ask different questions. A compliance audit asks “do we meet the standard?”. A security audit asks “are our controls actually effective?”. An organization can pass a compliance audit and still have a firewall rule that exposes its database to the internet. A security audit is designed to catch that kind of gap.

Common reasons to commission one

Clients typically ask for a security audit after a merger, a major infrastructure change or a security incident. It is also useful well ahead of an ISO/IEC 27001:2022, SOC 2 or PCI DSS audit, so technical weaknesses are fixed before the external auditor sees them. We work across on-premises, cloud and multi-entity environments.

Areas we examine

  • Configuration and hardening of servers, databases, network devices and cloud accounts, checked against CIS Benchmarks.
  • Identity and access, including Active Directory, administrator accounts, multi-factor authentication coverage, and how access is granted and removed when staff join, move or leave.
  • Network security, meaning firewall rules, separation between networks, and remote access.
  • Logging and monitoring: whether security events are recorded, kept long enough and trigger alerts.
  • Security operations such as patching, backup, incident response and change management.
  • Governance, covering policies, risk management and security awareness.

Criteria come from CIS Benchmarks, NIST SP 800-53 and NIST CSF, and are mapped to ISO/IEC 27001:2022, SOC 2, PCI DSS and GDPR where relevant.

How the audit is carried out

We agree the systems, applications and processes in scope, and which benchmarks apply. We collect policies, procedures, network diagrams, configurations and logs. Our auditors then assess access control, authentication, network security and incident response procedures. They look for weaknesses through configuration review, vulnerability scanning and, where agreed, targeted penetration testing.

Each weakness is rated by how likely it is to be exploited and what the impact on the business would be. The report sets out clear, practical recommendations. Once your team has acted on them, we verify that the fixes are complete and the controls have improved.

The output

  • An executive summary with an overall rating of control effectiveness.
  • Detailed findings with evidence, risk rating and fix guidance.
  • A prioritized remediation plan.
  • Follow-up verification of the items you have fixed.

Request a security audit proposal for an independent view of how well your controls work.