3 Common Reasons Businesses Fail an IT Audit

While many may consider an audit of any kind to be a pain in the neck or worse, they can actually be an effective way to ensure that businesses are following best practices and remaining compliant. After all, nobody wants to be the company that failed an audit. Despite this, many companies aren’t up to standard where their IT is concerned, and it has an impact.

What follows are some common issues that often trip up companies when their IT is audited.

Outdated Software - From the operating system on company workstations to the network itself, a failure to apply any updates or security patches is a big red flag for auditors. This is because outdated solutions are vulnerable to security threats, and therefore, the business is put at risk and could potentially put others at risk as well.

No Business Continuity Plan - A business without a business continuity plan is a business that is vulnerable to chance--and while chances are that your business won’t burn down or be flooded by a tropical storm, there’s still a chance that it might. A lack of preparation for a potentially business-ending event is certainly not in line with best practice, and will prevent your business from receiving approval from auditors.

Poor or Lacking Implementation - A wide variety of internal processes will be checked to determine a company’s compliance, and so you must be sure that yours are all in line. Outdated IT policies will often result in a failing grade, as will a lack of penetration testing or two-factor authentication practices. Furthermore, auditors will not look well upon security responsibilities being spread throughout an IT resource team, so every member will have to be able to handle all security responsibilities if called upon.

These are just the beginning of the ways your company could potentially come up short in an audit. In order to truly perform well, you must be sure that the entirety of your IT is up to standards.

It is also important to remember that auditors are not the bad guys. In fact, they are just the opposite--they’re the ones who are actively making sure that the bad guys have as difficult a time as possible entering your systems by enforcing basic security practices.

Directive can help you prepare your security for the next time you potentially face an audit by implementing the solutions that the auditors are looking for. Give us a call at 607.433.2200 to get started.