What Is It Auditing?

By Author: Emma-Jane
Total Articles: 5
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What is IT Auditing?

IT auditing is the process of reviewing, evaluating and reporting on IT systems and infrastructure. It is ordinarily carried out externally by specialist IT and tech auditors for companies.

IT audits provide objective quality assurance to businesses by mitigating any risks associated with IT or technology. In addition, IT auditing ensures all businesses stay compliant with GDPR regulations.

Overall, IT auditing assesses all or a select few of the following:

- Data and how it is stored and accessed
- IT systems and applications
- Security (both physically and digitally)
- Technology development, innovation and capacity
- A businesses overall IT governance and compliance
- IT and technology infrastructure
- Connected servers, networks, intranets, telecommunications and other
networks
- IT risk assessments

As a result, businesses can undertake IT projects with peace of mind, as they will be aware of any potential bumps down the road. An IT audit ensures all systems and applications stay as reliable as possible and ...
... are controlled, efficient and secure.

You shouldn’t be worrying about whether your system is secure, after all, it’s likely you’re running a business. Nor should you be fretting whether your existing IT infrastructure is at capacity or able to handle new tech.

No business owner wants to lose money. Especially not to outdated tech or inefficient systems. That’s exactly why IT audits are crucial for business growth and success.

Auditing IT processes regularly means that businesses can adopt the future technology and run at full capacity.

What are IT Auditing Benchmarks?

IT auditors carry out their audits against standards or set practices and there are different IT audit standards. There are plenty of benchmarks out there, here are just two of them:

ISO 27001

ISO 27001 is an international standard. It’s specifically for information security management systems (ISMS). As such it provides an overall approach to business security. It includes technology, employees, tech and IT processes.
Businesses can achieve ISO 27001 certification to illustrate they are following best industry standard practices. In order to achieve this, it’s important to demonstrate your commitment to compliance. And this is when carrying out regular IT audits can help.
ISO 9001
ISO 9001 is another international standard, however this one is not purely related to IT systems. It ensures an overall quality management system (QMS) is in place.

How Regular IT Auditing Can Support Business Growth

In order to see a business grow, the ability to adopt new technology is essential. Too often, businesses fail to keep up-to-date or neglect new technology only to fall flat, while their competitors are thriving.

Keeping ahead of the competition requires the ability to make the right business decisions. Having large data sets to guide these decisions is important. As well as being flexible with business models or for example, entering mergers.

Naturally, they all present their own unique set of trials. But also opportunities for growth. Regular IT auditing keeps all business decisions on track and moving in the right direction.

Once your business is assessed, an IT auditor will evaluate how to deliver results. In addition, they can provide you with actionable data that can help you to rapidly respond to IT challenges.

Take advantage of their unique expertise and experience to kickstart your business to the next level.

Protect Your Business with IT Auditing

Only 35% of UK businesses have conducted a cybersecurity audit. This figure is relatively small. What’s more, in the last year alone, almost half (46%) of UK organisations and businesses have reported security or data breaches.

Clearly, many business owners and IT managers do not consider IT auditing important, when the data says they should.

Of course, all businesses are different and will have differing needs based on their resources and objectives. But ultimately, it’s up to business owners to protect their company, their employees and their infrastructure. Not to mention keep customer data safe and remain compliant.

For many it comes down to not knowing where to start. But if your business isn’t sure how, then get in touch with experts who can guide you. Future proof your business and mitigate the security and data risks with regular audits.

Regular IT auditing should form part of your business strategy. For example, even if you do conduct them, and one past audit received good results - it does not stop there. IT auditing is a continuous process. Even more so in IT and technology, which evolves every single day.

Summary

To conclude, IT audit and review experts will:

Have a good understanding of your key IT processes
Be knowledgeable on any IT or tech related system
Effectively analyse and assess those systems
Remain up-to-date with the latest tech and IT developments
Mitigate any potential risks or predict possible future risks
Be excellent communicators and fully transparent

As demonstrated, a great IT auditor needs to be experienced and multi-skilled. It’s imperative that they stay up-to-date technologically. As well as understand and assess all elements of IT processes, systems and infrastructure in order to provide the very best …IT auditing and reviews… for your business.