Security Audit Checklist: 10 Steps for Protection

Given that phishing attacks are on the rise, as 57% of organizations experience them at least weekly or even more often, it has never been more important to have strong security measures in place. Every ignored endpoint, misconfigured application, and untrained employee can compromise your security. A security audit checklist is a systematic guide that enables an organization to systematically identify areas of vulnerability before they are exploited by criminals. Therefore, it is important for organizations to have some knowledge about fundamental concepts of security auditing and how to apply them in practice.

In this article, we define what a security audit is and discuss why checklists are useful when conducting security audits. First, we discuss various types of risks often identified during the audit process and then outline multiple types of audits, such as IT, web, network, and cloud. We then proceed to the ten critical steps in the audit process and, finally, how SentinelOne optimizes the security audit.

What is a Security Audit Checklist?

A security audit checklist is a list of activities, checks, and verifications that help in the process of a security audit to ensure that all risks are covered systematically. These checklists could include things like asset inventories, patch levels, encryption settings, access controls, and staff training processes. Some companies incorporate them into their general auditing process, citing them during routine or periodic audits or following significant modifications to the structure.

Through the use of a checklist, it becomes easier to avoid cases where some elements are left unnoticed, especially during multi-domain assessments such as network scans, database tests, and application assessments. Moreover, every item in the checklist correlates with the established security audit standards such as ISO 27001 and NIST or compliance regulations like PCI DSS. To sum up, a security audit checklist is a roadmap that turns a general security assessment into a structured, reproducible procedure.

Why is a Security Audit Checklist Important?

Cybersecurity spending was around $87 billion in 2024, up from $80 billion in 2023, showing how much organizations rely on protective measures. However, even the best solutions are not immune to leaving some loopholes when staff do not pay attention to the basics. This is where a well-documented cyber security audit checklist proves valuable as it establishes a connection between the tools and the actions of the staff, which forms a roadmap.

Here are five reasons why a methodical approach to organizing work ensures high-quality and effective outcomes:

1. Ensuring Consistency & Thoroughness: Sloppy or impulsive approaches to auditing are likely to miss minute vulnerabilities such as unlocked developer accounts or open ports. In this way, each environment is treated with the same level of scrutiny as the previous or the next one since the tasks are listed and followed in order. This synergy fosters consistent coverage across different teams or business units. In the long run, it helps to avoid the situation where new enhancements are overshadowed by surface-level issues.
2. Facilitating Compliance & Regulatory Needs: From HIPAA to GDPR, rules and regulations require the identification of constant risk evaluations. Using an audit checklist ensures that each of the mandated controls, such as data encryption, role-based permission, or breach notification, is checked systematically. Auditors can easily link items with legal clauses since they are in the same document. Failure in these checks could result in penalties, loss of reputation or having to carry out repairs within a specified period.
3. Reducing Human Error: Even the most experienced security personnel can forget some of the tasks when under pressure. An effective checklist reduces memory-related failures, especially in large and complex environments. Through each step, such as checking the status of OS patches or reviewing the rules of the firewalls, the staff makes sure no area is left unchecked. This helps to avoid a critical oversight happening due to an especially busy release cycle or lack of coordination.
4. Accelerating Onboarding & Collaboration: With a security audit checklist, newcomers or members from cross-functional teams are able to quickly understand the necessary work to be done to sustain a security baseline. A single, shared reference fosters consistency between different squads—e.g., dev, ops, and QA. On the other hand, a good documented security audit process helps in defining the sequence of activities in order to avoid confusion. In the long run, the organization develops a security-first culture in which the role of every employee is not concealed.
5. Providing a Roadmap for Progressive Enhancement: Recording each item is useful for documenting historical results, evaluating closure rates, and identifying recurring problems. This creates a virtuous cycle of constant improvement which means if some tasks look like they are done poorly or not done at all, management will seek to improve the tools or people. The structured approach also enables easy expansion when new technologies, such as containers or serverless, emerge.

Common Security Gaps Identified in Audits

Despite organizations employing firewalls and encryption in their networks, new threats keep emerging from time to time. A security audit often identifies vulnerabilities such as unpatched software, users with excessive privileges, or insufficient logging.

Here are five areas that a good checklist for a security audit can identify and address:

1. Unpatched Systems & Software: Malicious actors take advantage of unpatched CVEs in operating systems, frameworks, or applications if organizations are slow to patch. One unsecured server can compromise an entire network. The infiltration angles are eliminated with the help of automatic scanning and the documented patching schedule. Incorporating patch tasks into regular sprints helps dev and IT teams minimize exploitation windows.
2. Weak Authentication & Privilege Management: Even the most complex architectures can easily be compromised due to excessive privileges or reused default credentials. Having once acquired such ‘master keys,’ lateral movement is as easy as a walk in the park. Such infiltration can be prevented through rotating passwords, using multi-factor authentication, and adopting roles of least privilege. These are the control weaknesses that a cyber security audit checklist usually points out.
3. Insufficient Data Encryption & Backups: Storing data in an unencrypted format while the data is at rest or even when in transit is an invitation to espionage. For instance, the absence of regular backups proves disastrous when it comes to restoration after a breach or ransomware attack. Ensuring that TLS is implemented and used to its full capacity, that strong ciphers are used, and that backup routines are secure is crucial. The failure to do so not only breeds infiltration but also a significant amount of downtime in the event of an incident.
4. Poor Configuration & Logging: Misconfigurations such as S3 buckets left open or debugging endpoints left exposed are a common path into the organization. Likewise, partial logging hinders the possibility of identification or even investigation of an infiltration attempt. Examining the config files, cross-checking the environment variables or even confirming that the SIEM/EDR solutions are capturing all events is a key part of the security audit process. As time goes on, having a standardized configuration template decreases the likelihood of exposure incidents.
5. User & Third-Party Oversights: Inadequate protection can be bypassed through phishing, shadow use of IT, or third-party contractors who do not have strict security measures in place. These are the “soft spots” at which an attacker can gain access by either extracting credentials or plugging in malicious devices. With vendor risk assessments, staff training, and user behavior monitoring, teams close common attack vectors. An updated security audit checklist also includes checking on third-party compliance or staff awareness levels.

Types of Security Audits and Their Checklists

Despite being a general term, security audits differ in terms of the range and field of activity—IT systems, web environments, networks, or cloud configurations. Each requires specific activities to ensure relevant controls.

In the next section, we identify four major types of security audits, each with a specific approach and a list of items.

IT Security Audit Checklist

Typically, IT audits revolve around servers, OS patching, and user accounts, which validate general enterprise systems. It validates whether domain controllers, Active Directory, or hardware endpoints align with internal security standards. Items often include: 

1. Basic checks for all OS and software at the patch level
2. Verifying user privileges in domain controllers
3. Assessing automated backup solutions and disaster recovery exercises
4. Monitoring centralized logs for signs of abuse, particularly involving administrative accounts

Website Security Audit Checklist

Web audits involve elements such as code-level flaws, SSL settings, and injection points. They make sure that the code follows guidelines such as OWASP Top 10. These can be more general and might include input validation, HTTP security headers, or session management. Some of the items included are:

1. Scanning for cross-site scripting or SQL injection vulnerabilities
2. HTTPS enforcement and the utilization of the latest TLS ciphers
3. Ensuring that Content Security Policies are properly configured to prevent the execution of unauthorized scripts
4. Monitoring the time that session tokens remain active and idle time limits

Network Security Audit Checklist

Networks remain an essential intrusion point through which servers, endpoints, and external gates connect. This category usually involves checking the firewall rules, intrusion detection systems, and subnets.

It can also reduce the level of lateral movement or scanning by unauthorized people. Here is what the checklist includes:

1. Identifying open ports and checking the correctness of the firewall rules
2. Verifying VLAN configurations or micro-segmentation to prevent cross-subnet penetration
3. Scanning through IDS/IPS alerts to spot repeated anomalous activities
4. Confirming the use of encryption in transport layer protocols (e.g., SSH v2, TLS 1.2+)

Cloud Security Audit Checklist

With organizations migrating to IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS models, it becomes important to have strong configurations in place. This audit type covers misconfigured S3 buckets, unprotected secret managers, or the temporary use of containers.

This synergy ensures that the cloud expansions are dynamic and that zero-trust strategies are synchronized. The checklist includes:

1. Validating IAM roles for minimal privilege to enhance Identity and Access Management.
2. Searching for open cloud storage or publicly exposed DNS records
3. Validating container configurations and patch levels of ephemeral nodes
4. Securing data at the time of storage and when in transit

Security Audit Checklist: 10 Key Steps

If you are creating a new environment from scratch or analyzing an existing one, it is always beneficial to adhere to a strict protocol that ensures adequate coverage. An ideal security audit checklist combines the elements of scanning, policy reviews, and interview sessions with the staff.

Here, we present ten fundamental processes that integrate these tasks into a coherent framework for creating sound and reliable assessments:

1. Inventory All Assets & Data: Start with listing out all the physical and virtual systems starting from the server located in your premises to the cloud containers. Categorize your data into two broad categories, sensitive and non-sensitive, so that you can guarantee more protection for the sensitive information you use most often in your missions. It will also not consider other systems that may be in existence as ephemeral or shadow IT that may not be monitored. An inventory is one of the key components of any security audit since it serves as the starting point.
2. Define Audit Scope & Objectives: The audit could be compliance specific, for instance, a PCI DSS audit, or it could be a risk reduction audit. Determine which departments or applications contain your critical assets, such as customer PII or financial data. The integration makes sure that each step is in harmony with the overall business objectives. Clear scoping also aids in the allocation of proper resources and identification of proper tools.
3. Gather Existing Policies & Documentation: Review data handling policies and procedures, user management strategies, backup and recovery plans, and vendor agreements. Compare them with actual practices to identify gaps—such as having an encryption policy but not actually following it. This synergy fosters an apples-to-apples comparison between stated procedures and daily operations. These contribute to policy change recommendations.
4. Conduct Automated Scanning and Vulnerability Assessment: Use specialized tools for OS patches, web code injection detection, or network port scanning. It quickly identifies known CVEs, unpatched frameworks, or outdated TLS ciphers. Integrate scan results with a single dashboard or vulnerability management system. This approach makes sure that there is no gap left unnoticed and unaddressed.
5. Perform Manual Reviews and Penetration Testing: Automated scans may fail to detect logic-based vulnerabilities or social engineering approaches. It is necessary to invite pen testers to simulate the real attacker approach and check privileges or infiltration capability. This synergy complements tool findings and reveals additional weaknesses. Gradually, manual tests clarify the relationship between code correctness and assumptions about the environment.
6. Assess User & Access Controls: Check role-based permissions and make sure that the staff has only those privileges that are necessary. Check multi-factor authentication usage across administrative accounts. Identify old or abandoned accounts from former employees that are still being used. Doing so eliminates one of the most typical vectors by which criminals can infiltrate if they get hold of a single login.
7. Review Logs & Incident Response Preparedness: Make sure logs record login attempts, file modifications, or network irregularities. Integrate them with SIEM or EDR solutions for real-time threat identification. At the same time, ensure that there are escalation procedures in place in case of a breach. The integration enhances efficiency in conducting forensics, reducing the time taken to contain affected computers.
8. Evaluate Backup & Recovery Mechanisms: Find out how long it takes you to recover your data when ransomware attacks or servers go down. Make sure that backups are still kept off-site or offline so that encryption also does not affect them. Find out how often restoration drills are conducted—written policies and procedures cannot guarantee that the implementation will be successful when under pressure. Having strong backups is a must in any security audit checklist approach when it comes to the security of any business.
9. Compile Findings & Recommendations: Categorize the threats based on their levels of risk as critical, high, medium, or low. Then recommend a course of action such as a software patch or policy clarification. Linking each defect to compliance rules or business risks makes the sense of urgency clearer. This synergy leads to a polished security audit, an example of how you can drive immediate improvements. The final report must be written in a language that is understandable by technical leads and the management.
10. Execute Remediations & Schedule Subsequent Audits: After the audit is complete, address the highest-priority issues immediately to prevent fixations on partial solutions. Organizations should incorporate scanning into DevOps pipelines or use it in monthly sprints for continuous coverage. Over time, re-auditing or rotating pen testers ensures that emerging threats are kept in check at all times. This makes security more than a mere check-and-balance process which is done at random, but rather an ongoing process.

Best Practices for a Successful Security Audit

The integration of the security audit checklist with enhanced best practices ensures that the framework is as effective as possible. This way, security becomes an inherent part of daily processes, staff, development cycles, and compliance requirements.

Here is a list of five recommendations that can be successfully implemented to improve any security audit process, ensuring the achievement of sustainable outcomes:

1. Align Stakeholders from the Start: Ensure that the executive management supports the audit in order to provide it with the necessary resources and attention. Make sure every department, including HR, finance, the development department, etc., is aware of the scope. This encourages acceptance rather than resistance, especially in instances where change is significant. Ongoing integration ensures that the reporting structures and individuals who approve the last remediation costs are defined.
2. Leverage Automation & Integration: Regular testing cannot suffice the speed of DevOps, therefore, integrate scanning tools that integrate with CI/CD. Automating scripts for new commits or container images minimizes human errors due to oversight. They also facilitate triage by producing a single list of vulnerabilities. When you incorporate automation at every stage, your staff can focus on high-level work.
3. Document Every Phase Thoroughly: Document how each step was conducted, the tools that were employed, and who checked the results from the planning stage through to the first, second, third, and subsequent attempts. This synergy addresses compliance and identifies the root causes if something does not meet the set goal. Documentation also plays an important role in passing information to new staff regarding past weaknesses or changes in the environment. These records accumulate over time to provide knowledge for future audits or expansion of functionality.
4. Integrate a Multi-Layered Defense Approach: A single control—such as firewalls—will not be enough if employees choose weak passwords or if the cloud is not set up correctly. Implement layered protection measures such as segmentation of networks, use of EDR solutions, educating employees, and use of robust encryption. The integration amongst these layers significantly reduces the number of possible angles of infiltration. In the end, a multi-tiered approach halts criminals at various stages, which decreases the chances of infiltration.
5. Emphasize Remediation & Verification: Identifying the vulnerabilities and failing to get them fixed in due time can cause some repercussions. Ensure each fix is assigned to a specific team or person, establish deadlines, and make sure that each patch or policy is checked. In the event that new code appears after the fix, retests help in confirming that the vulnerability is well sealed. In the long run, the ability to immediately patch or reconfigure builds a culture of high-security maturity in the day-to-day development, operations, and staff.

How SentinelOne Can Help?

SentinelOne can help organizations craft practical security audit checklists by assessing their cloud and cyber security posture. It can scan for Active Directory and Entra ID risks and scope for infrastructure vulnerabilities and immediately resolve them with its 1-click remediation.

SentinelOne can help them implement the best security practices before conducting audits for best outcomes.

SentinelOne can provide comprehensive visibility into an organization’s estate. Companies can gain real-time insights across endpoints, cloud workloads, and IoT devices. It includes security features that help organizations meet industry regulations, such as GDPR and PCI-DSS, with minimal manual effort. For example, during a network security audit, the platform can automatically scan for misconfigured devices, identify suspicious network activity, and recommend corrective actions.

SentinelOne’s Offensive Security Engine with Verified Exploit Paths can predict attacks before they happen. The platform’s agentless CNAPP can be invaluable when conducting security audits since it offers the following: Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM), External Attack and Surface Management (EASM), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), IaC Scanning, secrets scanning, and more. The platform can also scan public and private cloud repos (including GitHub) and prevent cloud credentials leakages.

Book a free live demo.

Conclusion

Developing a comprehensive security audit checklist ensures that there is a constant awareness of the various security threats that are present. From identifying weaknesses in code and checking on patches to educating the staff on the risks of phishing, these planned activities cut down on the number of ways an attacker can get in. As various real-life scenarios demonstrate, a single unpatched server or default credential can undo the best-laid security strategies. Together, the 10 steps discussed in the article, including asset discovery, scope definition, scanning, testing, and reporting, provide a solid framework for future successes.

Furthermore, a cyclic approach can also be used to address emerging technologies including short-lived clouds and DevOps growths. Through the integration of scanning in each pipeline and implementation of best practices, security shifts from a reactive framework to a proactive one. Integrating SentinelOne Singularity combines deep endpoint learning with immediate quarantining so that an intrusion encounters a barrier as soon as it gets detected.

Get a free demo of SentinelOne Singularity™ to find out how to use artificial intelligence in detection and response to improve your audit position.

FAQs

1. What is a Security Auditing?

Security auditing is the process of examining an organization’s security policies, settings, and procedures to identify vulnerabilities. It may include activities such as searching for software glitches, assessing users’ rights, or checking encryption use. The integration also helps in following guidelines from other frameworks, such as ISO 27001 or PCI DSS, while decreasing the likelihood of penetration. In conclusion, audits assist in harmonizing staff, processes, and technology for the best defense mechanisms.

2. What are Security Audit Standards?

Security audit standards are the policies and procedures that have been developed and agreed on for practice in order to provide a set of standard measures and procedures in the conduct of security audits. Some of the frameworks that can be used include ISO 27001, NIST SP 800-53, or COBIT, which determine how to plan, conduct, and conclude an audit. When an organization links tasks with these frameworks, it meets compliance with the established frameworks at a given point in time. These standards are widely used in many industries to standardize vendor evaluation and internal reference points.

3. What should be included in a Cyber Security Audit Checklist?

A cyber security audit checklist usually focuses on patch levels, user authentication, encryption, network segregation, and incident response plans. It also encompasses logging activities, backup procedures, and training of users. Each one guarantees that an individual domain, such as code scanning or data classification, is covered comprehensively. Checklists have grown over the years to include new technologies, compliance requirements, or identified infiltration vectors.

4. How does a building security audit differ from a Cyber Security Audit?

A building security audit checklist may focus on physical security measures such as enclosures, alarms, access cards, or surveillance cameras. On the other hand, a cyber security audit checklist involves firewalls, encryption, patch management, and users’ credentials in cyberspace. While both focus on minimizing risks, they have different areas of operation and responsibilities (physical and digital). Integrating them provides a strong consolidated security against the various risks that may affect an organization’s resources.

5. What are some Security Audit Examples?

An example of a security audit can involve checking on the compliance of a hospital’s EHR system with HIPAA standards, such as encryption of patient data and access control for the personnel. Another example is the use of a pen test against a retail company’s e-commerce site to identify injection vulnerabilities. Audits can also be performed to assure the enterprise usage of SaaS solutions regarding data localization and MFA. All of these scenarios demonstrate how scanning, policy checks, and final reports work together to identify infiltration angles.

6. How often should security audits be conducted?

Frequency can vary with the requirements of the industry, the tolerance for risk, and the extent of changes in technology. Some companies perform an audit once a year or once every six months, while others scan their networks on a monthly or quarterly basis. High risk industries, for instance, finance or healthcare, may use near-continuous scanning. Continual reassessment guarantees that newly implemented systems or code alterations are continually tested to meet the standard security audit guidelines for continuous risk mitigation.