How Security Audits from INCTech Help Keep Businesses Safe

A professional audit gives you a high level of clarity into your security vulnerabilities, providing an excellent starting point for building stronger security.

Cybersecurity is a challenge for small and midsized businesses, who are facing more complex security issues every year without the benefit of in-house cybersecurity expertise. There is no better place to get a grip on cybersecurity than with a thorough security audit conducted by the team at INCTech. A thorough analysis of your hardware, software, internet culture, business processes, and security goals can bring increased clarity, focus, and determination to all your subsequent cybersecurity budgeting and efforts.

Here are a few of the significant benefits of an INCTech security audit:

Better assess cybersecurity risk

Each company has unique security challenges. A manufacturer with a long supply chain and hundreds of vendors will have very different needs than a small architecture firm with virtual operations spread across different regions. A thorough audit can reveal your areas of greatest security vulnerability, allowing you to address them properly.

Streamline security budgeting

New cybersecurity tools are emerging almost every week, many of which have overlapping or conflicting claims. Without a clear sense of what tools will benefit your business most, you risk investing in the wrong tools or buying too many of them. By strategically focusing your efforts on your greatest vulnerabilities, you can stop over-spending on unnecessary tools.

They’re vital to strong compliance

Businesses that have even minor compliance requirements are oftentimes required to perform regular security audits to make sure that personally identifiable information is being adequately protected. Any business that accepts credit card transactions, for example, should make regular audits an integral part of their PCI-DSS self-assessment, though it often gets overlooked.

INCTech Audits Leverage Federal Cybersecurity Resources

We’re big believers in the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. First developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce to protect national infrastructure, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework is now seen by cybersecurity experts as one of the best resources for locating and mitigating cybersecurity and compliance risks. This makes it an invaluable tool for conducting cybersecurity audits.

The NIST cybersecurity framework is organized around five high-level core functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

Identify – Gain visibility into the vulnerability of your physical and digital assets
Protect – Limit access to your company assets with security controls
Detect – Gain control over your network activity and quickly identify threats
Respond – Contain cybersecurity events with a response plan and clear lines of communication
Recover – Effectively recover any damaged services with clear action points

These high-level functions provide a comprehensive system for locating and mitigating cybersecurity risk. When conducting a cybersecurity audit, the INCTech team focuses on Three (3) primary aspects of your cybersecurity systems.

Technical Controls

Technical controls are hardware and software tools that help you mitigate cybersecurity vulnerability. Auditing your technical controls involves going over those systems to ensure that they’re functioning effectively as a cohesive system for strong cybersecurity.

• Anti-virus and encryption software
• Hardware and software firewalls
• Identity and access control systems

Administrative Security

Protecting your network against hackers is a major focus of a cybersecurity program, but so is ensuring strong ­internal security. Negligent and malicious employees pose as big a threat to the security of your business as external hackers do. To help you address the risks INCTech can audit your physical premises to make sure that they’re optimized for security.

• Security education and awareness intelligence
• Bring your own devices (BYOD) solutions
• Personnel management procedures, including recruitment and on-boarding

Physical Security

Physical assets are an important but often overlooked aspect of strong security. Anything that’s tangible, from private offices and shared workspaces, to warehouses and door locks can create cybersecurity vulnerability, which is why those assets are an integral part of the INCTech auditing process:

• Server room and network equipment security
• Security camera installation and monitoring
• Entry and access control systems

Why Regular Vulnerability Scanning is Important

Another way in which business can help improve their security is by performing regular vulnerability scanning of their systems. Vulnerability scanning uses a set of specialized tools to scan both the interior and exterior of your network for cybersecurity weakness.

Network vulnerability scanning services from INCTech help you:

• Identify network security issues early
• Discover unauthorized devices connected to your network
• Locate subtle weaknesses in both software and firmware

How often your company should perform a vulnerability scan will depend on several factors. Businesses with large or fast-changing networks, those who have house large amounts of sensitive data, or ones who are facing significant compliance challenges will want to scan often. Smaller organizations may only need to perform a vulnerability scan a few times a year to ensure long-lasting security.

INCTech not only helps companies by providing them with the right set of tools to perform reliable vulnerability scans, it also provides the knowledge to configure those tools and interpret the results. We’ll turn the vulnerability scan report, a long and confusing document, into actionable next steps to improve your security, explaining our work at every step.

Want to learn more about how we conduct a security audit? Get in touch!

INCTech – Trusted Cybersecurity and Security Auditing Professionals

Businesses in Southern California and Michigan have trusted the cybersecurity experts at INCTech to provide them with world-class security audits and scanning services for nearly two decades.

If you want to gain maximum clarity over its cybersecurity controls with a thorough audit, we encourage you to reach out to our friendly team. They’ll use plain English to break down even the toughest cybersecurity concepts, giving you full transparency into the auditing process and helping you approach security with maximum clarity and confidence.

Contact us any time or call us at 800.333.2989.