Does your company need an IT audit? If you’ve never held one, nor heard the term before, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
What is an IT Audit?
An IT audit is an organized evaluation of your business’s IT systems. The audit process serves a few key functions. An effective audit ensures that your tech systems are able to protect your business from external threats and safeguard your assets. It can also highlight weaknesses in your existing IT system, like vulnerabilities to system outages.
On a broader level, IT audits can help you identify hardware and software that’s out of date or vulnerable. Finally, for larger companies, IT audits are used to establish whether or not a business’s technology is in compliance with federal or state regulations.
How to Conduct an IT Audit
First, establish what the goals of your IT audit are. Do you want to evaluate your business’s preparedness against cyberattacks, or are you more focused on ensuring that all of your current technology works properly and is well maintained?
Some common goals for IT audits are as follows:
- Review IT organizational structure
- Review IT policies and procedures
- Review IT standards
- Review IT documentation
- Review the organization’s BIA
- Interview the appropriate personnel
- Observe the processes and employee performance
- Examination, which incorporates by necessity, the testing of controls, and therefore includes the results of the tests.
Once you’ve established clear objectives for your audit, clarify who will do the auditing and what systems they’ll check. Checklists with clear guidelines come in handy.
Why you need an IT Audit
At first glance, IT audits may not seem to have much to do with your business’s bottom line. However, clarity regarding your business’s IT can help support your business in other ways. You can avoid cyberattacks by updating your software, and clarify exactly which hardware isn’t working.
Alternatives to Internal IT Auditing
Internal IT auditing requires a substantial investment in time and resources to be done effectively. If your business would benefit from understanding its own IT structure, but you just can’t spare the time, or don’t have the IT know-how, consider reaching out to Vodigy.
A managed IT service, like Vodigy, is a third-party business that maintains the IT equipment, protocol and testing for other businesses. Since managed IT services only focus on IT, we have the knowledge, resources, and capability to conduct IT audits.
Vodigy can help your business save money and perform more effectively. Contact us today!
