CYBER SECURITY audit course report

An
Audit Course Report
On
“CYBER SECURITY”
Submitted to
Department of Computer Engineering,
PDEA’s College of Engineering, Manjari BK,
Pune-412307
Submitted by
Gaurav Kumar Singh
TE Computer
Roll No. 48
Seat No.

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the below mentioned third year engineering students
have carried out the necessary an audit course report work on “CYBER
SECURITY” in the department of Computer Engineering, PDEA’s College of
Engineering, Manjari BK, Pune-412307. They have completed this audit course
work under my guidance in satisfactory manner in October 2019 of third year
engineering.
Gaurav Kumar Singh TE Computer Roll No. 48 Seat No.
Computer Engineering students have successfully completed an audit course
report on “CYBER SECURITY” towards the fulfillment of their Degree in
Computer Engineering in academic year 2019-2020. The performance of each of
these students during the course was very good.
Place:
Date:
Prof. B.S. Kankate Dr. R.V. Patil
Guide Principal/H.O.D.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Apart from the efforts of all the team members, the section of this an audit
course topic depends largely on the encouragement and guidance of our teachers.
We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the teachers who have been
instrumental in the approval of this audit course topic.
We would like to show our greatest appreciation to Prof. B.S. Kankate and
other staff members. We cannot think them enough for their tremendous support and
help. They motivated and encouraged use very time while selecting the proper an
audit topic. Without their encouragement and guidance, we would not have been
able to select the proper topic.
The contribution and support received from all the team members including
Gaurav Kumar is vital. The team spirit shown by all has made an audit course
report work successful.
Gaurav Kumar Singh TE Computer Roll No. 48 Seat No.

“Cyber Security”
PDEA’S COE, Department of Computer Engineering
ABSTRACT
Human error is the leading cause of data breaches, so you need to equip staff with the
knowledge to deal with the threats they face. Training courses will show staff how security threats
affect them and help them apply best-practice advice to real-world situations. Web application
vulnerabilities are a common point of intrusion for cyber criminals. As applications play an
increasingly critical role in business, it is vital to focus on web application security. Network
security is the process of protecting the usability and integrity of your network and data. This is
achieved by conducting a network penetration test, which scans your network for vulnerabilities
and security issues. Leadership commitment is the key to cyber resilience. Without it, it is very
difficult to establish or enforce effective processes. Top management must be prepared to invest
in appropriate cyber security resources, such as awareness training.
Cyber-attacks cost organizations billions of pounds and can cause serious damage.
Impacted organizations stand to lose sensitive data, and face fines and reputational damage. IT
Governance has a wealth of security experience. For more than 15 years, we’ve helped hundreds
of organizations with our deep industry expertise and pragmatic approach.

PDEA’S COE, Department of Computer Engineering
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sr. No. Contents Page
No.
1 Preface. 1
2 Introduction. 2
3 Relation Manager in Cybersecurity.
3.1 Information technology
3.2 Information security
4
4 Risk management.
5.1 Compliance and another team
9
5 Goals of A Cyber Audit Program.
6.1 Vulnerability Assessments
6.2 Penetration testing
11
6 Specialized Cyber Assessments. 15
7 Internal Audit’s Role in Cybersecurity Child’s pose. 17
8 Cyber security Framework Reclining bound angle. 18
9 Future Skills Requirements Headstand.
9.1 System Administration
9.2 Network Designing and Configuration
9.3 Software Designing.
22
10 Conclusion 25
11 References 26

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1. Preface
Over the course of just a few years, cybersecurity has grown into one of the most
significant risk management challenges facing virtually every type of organization. Is the internal
audit function keeping pace with this rapidly changing area of risk? This report examines this
question and, based on a survey of internal audit and cybersecurity professionals, offers some
observations on how internal audit departments are adapting in order to address cybersecurity
risks.
A decade ago, the internal audit function evolved and adapted to the increasingly
important role that information technology (IT) was playing in all aspects of business operations.
Today, internal audit faces the need to adapt once again to address the critical risks associated
with cybersecurity.
Recognizing this need, the Internal Audit Foundation and Crowe, in collaboration with
The Institute of Internal Auditors’ (IIA’s) Audit Executive Center, conducted a limited survey of
IIA members in order to understand how internal audit has begun to adapt to this new risk
landscape.
This report offers a summary of key findings from that research and provides insights
into some current internal audit and cybersecurity policies and practices. In addition, the report’s
authors draw on industry experience and observation based on their working relationships with
internal audit functions across a broad range of industries.

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2. Introduction
Evolving relationships. Cybersecurity concerns are driving organizations to redefine the
boundaries across the three lines of defense, and static relationships will not be equipped to
address the emerging risks. This means that internal audit’s relationships with other key players,
such as IT departments, information security (InfoSec) professionals, and risk management
groups, must continue to evolve.
Internal audit’s increasing role. To maintain effectiveness and credibility, internal audit
professionals must have a clear grasp of the larger issues and interdependencies involved. This
grasp includes understanding how much emphasis should be given to the prevention, detection,
and response elements of a cybersecurity program as well as the sufficiency of the controls and
testing. Internal audit must assert itself in independently assessing the rapidly evolving and
escalating risk environment. Because the costs of any failure in the first or second lines of
defense are so high, internal audit must be extra vigilant.
Access to cybersecurity expertise. As internal audit’s role evolves, it will require access
to personnel resources with technical expertise that is currently in high demand. However, such
resources can be difficult and expensive to attract and retain. How can internal audit ensure its
readiness to meet this challenge and position itself as knowledgeable, competent, and ready to
address the issues? In many cases, internal audit will need to revisit its relationships with IT and
InfoSec professionals in order to fill in the gaps.
The goal of this report is to examine current industry perceptions regarding those areas of
concern. It also aims to synthesize contemporary industry perspectives into actions that could
help audit shops prepare to address cyber risk by building relationships, identifying and adapting
their role, and developing or acquiring the knowledge needed to get the job done.
Cybersecurity began as an isolated, sometimes mysterious, technical area within
companies. Nevertheless, it has quickly grown into a global governance, risk, and control issue
involving nation states, organized crime, individual hackers, government agents, business users,
and other organizations.

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The stakes are high, with significant risks and potential rewards for all involved. Internal
audit teams are encouraged to consider the findings in this report in order to be prepared to
respond proactively to this rapidly evolving area of risk.

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3. Relationship Management in Cybersecurity
Maintaining effective relationships with other groups and departments within the
organization is always a critical concern for the internal audit function. It is important for internal
audit to understand the universe of relationships within an organization in order to better protect
it.
Although internal audit also must develop and maintain sound relationships with various
external groups — such as regulatory agencies, industry standard-setting and professional
organizations, and relevant law enforcement authorities — the focus of this report is on internal
audit’s relationships with other groups within the organization. Cooperative, positive
relationships with those being audited can greatly expedite the audit process and improve the
quality of the audit results.
At the same time, however, internal audit must be careful not to allow such relationships
to compromise its necessary independence. While independence is essential, a confrontational or
adversarial approach can hinder internal audit’s effectiveness. It is a matter of striking the right
balance, and the methods for determining and achieving that balance will vary widely from one
organization to another.
In the case of cybersecurity, the ability to strike the right balance can be further
complicated by the need for specialized expertise and technical knowledge, which often are
available only within the IT or InfoSec departments themselves. The internal audit function can
benefit when audit professionals make a special effort to understand the backgrounds,
mentalities, and motivations of the technical personnel who are being audited and who also must
provide some of the technical expertise that internal audit needs to perform its function.
To gauge how effectively internal audit communicates with personnel in the
cybersecurity realm, survey participants were asked specifically about the collaboration they
experience within their own organizations in relation to four specific departments: IT,
information security, risk management, and other compliance functions. The survey asked
participants to rate the level of collaboration they experienced on the following scale 0: We do
not perform audits of this area or have no relationship at this time.

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1: There is little communication and few pre-agreed upon responsibilities for assessments.
2: Communication with audit is formalized but limited to assessment requests.
3: Communication is frequent and goes beyond audit requests and assessments.
4: Communication by the department is prioritized, frequent, and includes sharing of ideas and
resources.
5: There is a high degree of trust between audit and the department, including being consulted
as a priority, albeit independent, partner throughout the year.crowe.com theiia.org/foundation
The results revealed that internal audit is more likely to at least have formalized audits and
communication with the IT and InfoSec departments, which is good. The results also suggested
such audits and communication are less likely to be in place with the compliance and risk
management functions, although these results could be skewed by smaller organizations that may
lack formalized departments in these areas.
Relational Intelligence, or awareness of the variety of relationships a customer can have with a
firm, is an important component to the main phases of CRM. Companies may be good at
capturing demographic data, such as gender, age, income, and education, and connecting them
with purchasing information to categorize customers into profitability tiers, but this is only a
firm's mechanical view of customer relationships.
Some CRM software is available as a software as a service (SaaS), delivered via the internet
and accessed via a web browser instead of being installed on a local computer. Businesses using
the software do not purchase it, but typically pay a recurring subscription fee to the software
vendor, Data warehouse technology, used to aggregate transaction information, to merge the
information with CRM products, and to provide key performance indicators. For compliance, the
combined responses for ratings zero, one, four, and five was 62 percent. For risk management,
the combined responses for these very strong and very weak relationships were 61 percent.
On the other hand, the percentage of companies stating that they maintain a relationship
characterized by the sharing of resources and high trust levels was lowest with the IT and

6
InfoSec teams, despite the fact that they reported a higher level of communication with these
departments. This situation reinforces the perception that barriers exist between the internal audit
function and the IT and InfoSec departments.
3.1 Information Technology:
Because technology is a key component in any organization’s ability to achieve its goals
and objectives, the relationship between audit and IT is one of the most critical to the success of
technology assessments. Unfortunately, in many organizations, the traditional relationship
between the audit and IT teams has not been fully collaborative. In some cases, this situation
might stem from IT team members’ understandable pride in the tools, systems, and processes
they have built. Preventing this natural pride from growing into defensiveness can require some
relationship-building skills on the part of the auditors. In other instances, IT auditors who lack
sufficient cybersecurity-specific skills can damage the relationship with the IT department due to
a lack of credibility.
The responses to the Foundation’s survey indicated that the majority of internal audit
departments (93 percent) had working relationships with IT, which is a positive sign. However,
just over 28 percent of internal audit departments had what would be considered collaborative
relationships with the IT departments. A sound relationship between audit and IT is important for
cybersecurity as well. Such a relationship can provide an excellent foundation for tackling cyber
risks, which will require even greater coordination and collaboration among these groups. By
working together, the internal audit and IT teams can bring greater clarity and understanding of
the organizational risks and business objectives through joint assessments that might have
traditionally been performed exclusively by internal audit.
3.2 Information Security:
In addition to the IT function, the information security team will often have significant
responsibilities that will need to be assessed throughout the organization. Although sometimes
the InfoSec and IT organizations are combined, they also can operate separately. In fact, a
growing number of regulatory agencies are starting to require the separation of these two
functions, which, in turn, requires a different approach for each audit.
Further distinction should be made between the information security function in general
and the cybersecurity team. Cybersecurity is generally understood to be a subset of the broader
information security function, which is responsible for numerous areas that are not necessarily
driven by technology issues. In an ideal world with unlimited resources, the responsibilities of
these two functions would be clearly distinct and carefully delineated.

7
In reality, however, considerable crossover frequently exists, with general InfoSec team
members often responsible for specific cybersecurity duties and concerns. Additionally, many
organizations outsource a portion of their cybersecurity program to third-party vendors,
including managed security service providers (MSSPs) and penetration testing providers. It is
critical that internal audit reviews the services these third parties provide, which means audit
must first understand the objectives, scope, and results of these services to ascertain if they are
meeting expectations, mitigating relevant risks, and providing value to the organization.
Penetration testing in support of regulatory requirements provides one example of how
this understanding is pertinent. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
requires that organizations perform penetration testing on a regular basis, but this testing is
focused on the cardholder environment. If this is the only penetration testing that an organization
is performing, it is likely that the majority of the corporate infrastructure is not being assessed.
The responses to the Foundation’s survey indicated that the majority of internal audit
departments (87 percent) had a working relationship with InfoSec, which is a positive sign.
However, just over 26 percent of internal audit departments had what would be considered a
collaborative relationship with the InfoSec department. These results are very similar to those
with the IT department, which is expected, as duties are often shared between the two functions.
In many instances, the InfoSec team might have a stronger, more positive relationship
with the audit team than other groups do because, in part, it focuses less on running infrastructure
or maintaining access and capacity and more on monitoring and detecting risk. As a result, the
InfoSec team might have a more intuitive understanding of internal audit’s function and value.
As the audit team seeks to build its capabilities, it is possible the InfoSec team could help audit
gain an even greater perspective of the risks faced by the IT infrastructure.
Internal audit, InfoSec, and cybersecurity also can take active steps to help strengthen
their relationships. Examples include co-sponsoring joint research projects or co-hosting
security-related training sessions or luncheon topics. In addition to bolstering much-needed
technical expertise and improving overall awareness of cybersecurity concerns, such activities
also help develop a closer professional relationship among the individuals most directly involved
in cybersecurity risk management.

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One complicating factor in such relationships is the necessary independence that internal
auditors must maintain. For example, IT auditors typically must use external security
frameworks such as banking regulations as a baseline to perform their audits. When a significant
or material finding pops up, it is the auditor who must bring bad news to the chief information
security officer (CISO) and the rest of the InfoSec team. It can be difficult to maintain a
collaborative approach in such circumstances, no matter how much the IT auditor and CISO
wish to maintain a positive relationship.

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4. Risk Management
At its heart, information security is the process of understanding, managing, and
mitigating risks. Ultimately, this focus on risk can help the risk management team within an
organization develop critical relationships with both information security and internal audit.
Furthermore, it will be critical that the risk management team tracks personnel, procedural, and
technical controls to help mitigate and control cybersecurity risk. As with all other areas of the
organization, audit must be prepared both to review the risk management and identification
procedures and to make sure that cybersecurity feeds into the organization’s enterprise risk
management framework.
It is worth noting that, broadly speaking, industry observation indicates that the most
effective organizations take a risk-based, rather than a controls-based, approach to cybersecurity.
The internal audit team is heavily involved and works closely with various participants in the
risk management process, including operational risk, business risk, and the chief risk officer.
The responses to the Foundation’s survey indicated that 72 percent of internal audit
departments had a working relationship with risk management, which was the lowest of all
departments surveyed. The results showed that more than a quarter of internal audit departments
were not working with risk management on cybersecurity, reinforcing the mindset that
cybersecurity is an IT issue. It is incumbent on internal audit to work intentionally to create
awareness that cybersecurity is an enterprise governance, risk, and control issue.
4.1 Compliance and Other Teams:
From helping with the development and deployment of policies to performing critical
roles during the incident response process, an effective cybersecurity program must rely on the
support of the legal, compliance, and other teams. In some organizations, disaster recovery,
business continuity planning, incident response, legal, and compliance teams are all key players
in a cohesive cybersecurity effort.
Recognizing the number of significant players involved, the internal audit team must be
prepared to work with these teams to assess their organization’s understanding of risk and the

10
roles they play in cybersecurity. The Foundation’s survey showed that the relationship with
compliance had the highest percentage of respondents (42 percent) reporting the relationship was
considered collaborative. This result seems to indicate that organizations view cybersecurity
compliance as a goal or a destination, which can be a shortsighted approach in managing overall
exposure.
It is important to reinforce that internal audit collaboration with these various teams
cannot come at the expense of objectivity. As internal audit works to attract, retain, and train
individuals with the skills and expertise necessary in cybersecurity, it must work closely with
other teams to develop and understand the appropriate processes and standards. Furthermore,
when collaborating with other teams, internal audit must also balance the opportunities for
learning and development with the need for independence.
In the end, all teams are still working toward a common goal: the ultimate success of the
organization.

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5. Goals of a Cyber Audit Program
As high-profile breaches continue to demand a focus on cybersecurity, internal audit
departments are challenged to upgrade their capability to assess the procedural, personal, and
technical controls related to their organizations’ data and information security practices. In
stepping up to this challenge, it can be helpful to recognize and address the ongoing evolution of
the well-established three lines of defense model and to clearly delineate both the broad goals of
a cyber audit program and the specific activities that must be carried out — and audited — in
pursuit of those goals.
5.1 The Lines of Defense:
The IT, InfoSec, and internal audit groups are involved in helping to defend the
organization from cybersecurity risk. Although the traditional three lines of defense risk
management model provides roles for each of these functions, in many organizations the
boundaries between these departments — as well as many others — are blurring.
It is incumbent on audit professionals to resist — or at the least question — any blurring
of these lines. Nevertheless, as a practical matter, they must acknowledge the ongoing blurring of
the traditional lines of defense and be willing to reassess how the model can be applied more
effectively.
The first line of defense in this model is composed of business process owners and
management. In the case of cybersecurity, this includes the lines of business and employees
around the organization, but also focuses on IT, which is responsible for the data infrastructure,
systems, and processes where the risk resides.
The second line of defense — the actual implementation and execution of risk
management processes — is the responsibility of the InfoSec function. The InfoSec team either
installs and monitors controls to detect malicious activity or employs third-party vendors to
perform this function. When an attack is detected, the InfoSec team is also responsible for
responding effectively. In many organizations, however, particularly those without a dedicated
InfoSec department, the responsibility for information security monitoring and response often
falls to the IT team — and the boundaries between the first two lines of defense begin to blur.

12
As the third line of defense, internal audit is responsible for verifying that the cybersecurity
effort is, in fact, a risk-based approach that properly identifies and prioritizes the risks, gathers
the right information, and prescribes appropriate responses. In reality, internal audit frequently
lacks the resources and background to evaluate the existing program. Instead, many internal
audit organizations look to cybersecurity professionals and outside vendors to assess their
cybersecurity program. This assessment includes ethical hacking, specialized evaluations, risk
assessments, and assessing InfoSec governance. Many of these assessments can be performed by
the second line as well.
While such blurring of the three lines is not necessarily desirable, it is in many cases
unavoidable. That said, it is incumbent on internal audit to develop cyber audit plans more
judiciously in order to minimize redundancy and duplication of effort and to minimize the
possibility of gaps or oversights. The relationships among all the groups involved are critical.
Better collaboration — particularly between the second and third lines of defense — can reduce
duplication while still clearly delineating who takes responsibility for each of the critical
functions. In other words, the various players are independent but integrated.
5.2 Looking Beyond Compliance:
One area in which organizations often struggle is determining how to integrate their
cybersecurity audit program within the organization’s overall risk management framework. For
example, when the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) published its
Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (CAT) in 2014, many banks initially questioned how they would
understand and prioritize the more than 400 individual controls and practices named in the
document.
The FFIEC tool outlined a comprehensive process for identifying an institution’s inherent
risk within five broad domains. It also provided methodologies for evaluating both the current
and desired cybersecurity maturity levels that management would deem acceptable for the
institution. Those organizations that approached the FFIEC assessment as primarily a compliance
function — using it as a checklist of practices that would help them pass regulatory scrutiny —
often had difficulty reaching their desired maturity levels across the five domains. A more
nuanced approach was necessary, in which the board and senior management team determine the

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acceptable level of risk for the organization in each specific area of concern. Similar experiences
occur in organizations that apply any of the other national or global cybersecurity frameworks,
such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST
CSF), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC) Cybersecurity Standards (specifically 27000 to 27008), the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Cybersecurity Standards for the European
Union, or Japan’s Cybersecurity Basic Act.
While checklist compliance with the relevant framework is the point of some
cybersecurity tools, those organizations that are ahead of the curve do not regard compliance as
the goal. Rather, they seek to develop appropriate levels of cybersecurity across the various risk
components, recognizing that a completely risk-free environment will never be achievable.
5.3 Prevention, Detection, and Response:
A fundamental tenet of cybersecurity practice in the past few years has been the
realization that, although many attacks can be thwarted, preventing all possible attacks is simply
not feasible. When assessing the likelihood of attack, the popular saying among cybersecurity
professionals is, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”
This realization has led to the development and widespread acceptance of a three-phased
defense strategy composed of prevention, detection, and response. Although IT and InfoSec do
their best to prevent the vast majority of attacks, it is critical that systems are in place to detect
those that they cannot prevent. By looking for indicators of compromise on the network, gaps in
the preventive controls can be strengthened, allowing the organization to enhance its overall
coverage. Further, knowing that not every attack will be prevented or immediately detected, the
organization should also have in place incident response plans to limit the damages caused by the
loss or compromise of critical data and to hasten a return to normal operations.
Although internal audit’s role in this three-pronged strategy has traditionally focused on
the realm of prevention, best-in-class performers will work to broaden their scope to audit
cybersecurity capabilities related to detection and response as well. Throughout all three of these
stages, audit must be prepared to assess the effectiveness of the controls in place.

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The Foundation’s survey explored this issue and asked participants how extensively their
organizations were auditing cybersecurity capabilities in these three areas. For each area, the
survey asked them to characterize the level of audit testing they performed on a four-level scale
— from “no auditing” to “extensive testing.” Audit helps enterprises with the challenges of
managing cyber threats, by providing an objective evaluation of the controls and making
recommendations to improve them as well as assisting the senior management and the board of
directors understand and respond to cyber risks.
Source: Crowe analysis the survey responses indicated that preventive controls are not only the
most frequently covered, but they also are tested at the highest rates. As cybersecurity evolves,
the ability to detect and respond will be just as crucial as the controls associated with preventing
attacks. Furthermore, the results showed that most organizations do at least a basic auditing of
their cybersecurity, but there is room to grow.

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6. Specialized Cyber Assessments
Although the approach for cybersecurity audits is similar to other assessments performed
by internal audit, cyber assessments require a deep understanding of the applications, systems,
and technologies involved. These specialized assessments focus on both the supporting
technologies — such as network routers and firewalls, servers and workstations, and application
development environments — and the applications themselves.
As noted earlier, the responsibility for conducting and evaluating the results of such
assessments varies from one organization to another, so both the InfoSec function and internal
audit must collaborate on who conducts such assessments and how often they should take place,
taking into account the organization’s agreed-upon risk tolerance levels. Internal audit should be
performing a broad range of specialized assessments in relation to cybersecurity concerns.
Two specific types of assessments in particular are often misunderstood:
6.1 Vulnerability assessments:
A vulnerability assessment typically involves using an automated tool to scan an IT
infrastructure and report the results. The tool’s job is to identify all systems and the associated
applications and services they are running. Based on this information, the tool attempts to
identify issues such as missing patches, default passwords, and known exploits.
6.2 Penetration testing:
Penetration tests, often referred to as “pen tests,” mimic a real-world attacker attempting
to access systems and data by identifying vulnerabilities and combining (or “chaining”) them to
get unauthorized access to information or gain administrative control. Unlike vulnerability
assessments, penetration tests can take into account the human factor, along with mitigating
controls and the issue’s impact on the overall confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the
supporting environment.

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Ultimately, each organization, based on its risk assessment as well as its IT infrastructure,
must determine what particular assessment or combination of assessments best fits its
information security strategy. Typically, a combination of both types of assessments is necessary
for a robust vulnerability management program. Although InfoSec or IT teams will typically
drive this program, it is critical that the internal audit team reviews it to validate the scope,
assessment, and results. In the same way, every organization must determine for itself whether it
is cost-effective — or even possible — to develop the technical capacity to conduct these
assessments in-house. The resources and necessary capabilities can be expensive, but in large
organizations, where the scope of the cybersecurity operation merits ongoing testing, having the
capacity in-house can be desirable.
In many other cases, however, outside vendors can perform these assessments more cost-
effectively. The CAE needs to make an informed, considered decision in this area to determine
when it makes sense to develop in-house capabilities. If this function is contracted out, it is still
important that internal audit assess the efficacy of the arrangement.

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7. Internal Audit’s Role in Cybersecurity
IT’s dramatically larger role in today’s data-driven economy is, without question, one of
the most important business trends of recent decades. Like all other professions, internal audit’s
challenge is to stay current with events while concurrently expanding its role in safeguarding the
security and availability of critical business information. The Foundation’s survey results reflect
this continuing adaptation, but they also suggest that considerable room still exists for internal
audit to play a larger and more proactive role in IT and InfoSec strategies generally and in
cybersecurity concerns specifically. For example, only 20 percent of the survey participants
reported that their organizations consulted with the audit team in the design and planning of
major IT projects and continued to involve internal audit actively throughout the projects’
duration.
In the majority of organizations surveyed, internal audit’s input into IT projects was
limited to an advisory role or less. In 50 percent of the organizations, internal audit had no,
minimal, or limited involvement until projects were completed. Auditing is a security measure—
not an inconvenience. It is critical to protecting an enterprise in today’s global digital economy.
The internal audit department plays a vital role in cyber security auditing in many organizations,
and often has a dotted-line reporting relationship to the audit committee to ensure an independent
view is being communicated at the board level of the enterprise.
Similarly, approximately half (52 percent) of the survey participants reported that the
internal audit function was a member of their organizations’ project or IT governance
committees. This result suggests that internal audit leaders must continue to assert and
demonstrate the value their departments can provide in terms of helping to manage risk
associated with IT initiatives more effectively. In terms of cybersecurity issues specifically, the
survey responses indicate that opportunity exists for greater visibility to cybersecurity concerns
at the board level. Only 39 percent of the respondents said their organizations went beyond
standard audit reports in reporting cybersecurity risk and trends to the board or audit committee.
As the attention paid to cybersecurity concerns continues to grow, internal audit should expect to
take a more proactive role in helping to validate the business’s assessment and management of
this rapidly growing area of risk.

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8. Cybersecurity Frameworks
One of the fundamental first steps internal audit must take in developing a cybersecurity
audit plan is to thoroughly understand the cybersecurity framework the organization uses. The
selection of a framework is a management decision, often determined by IT and InfoSec
executives. The framework sets out the standards that internal audit will audit against. As such,
the framework is a pivotal factor that drives the development of the audit plan. All such
frameworks are designed to provide a way for organizations to begin the management of their
cybersecurity systems and help establish a common language and terminology for all parties
involved. For those reasons, the chosen standard also provides a practical methodology for the
audit team to use as it plans its assessment of the same program compliance.
A number of specialized frameworks have been specifically tailored to address certain
industries and control environments. When determining which framework to use, the audit team
must take into account specific industry standards, regulator guidance, and any legal
requirements imposed by authorities in the organization’s jurisdiction, in addition to considering
the advantages and disadvantages of each framework. Some of the most widely used frameworks
that could be applicable to various organizations include:
NIST CSF and NIST SP 800-53. The NIST CSF was published in 2014, following a
presidential executive order. The CSF consists of the framework core, which is a set of about 100
cybersecurity activities (controls) across five functions; the framework tiers, which help define
an organization’s cybersecurity risk management “maturity”; and the framework profiles, which
show the current and target states of the organization. The NIST Special Publication 800-53
provides a catalog of security controls designed for federal information systems. These more
than 170 controls are spread across three security control baselines, which are starting points for
selection of implementation of controls. Both NIST frameworks take a risk-based approach to
recommending controls to implement in order to provide flexibility to organizations of different
sizes, complexity, and objectives.
ISO/IEC 27001. The ISO and the IEC published the 27001-security standard in 2013 as
an update to the 27001:2005 standard. This framework is unique in that organizations can
become 27001-certified, and the framework is used internationally. Similar to the NIST

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frameworks, this framework does not require all 114 controls be in place, but it serves as a basis
for certification and provides a set of risk-based recommended controls for an organization to
implement as well as a process for managing risk.
CIS Top 20. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) published the Critical Security
Controls for Effective Cyber Defense, which is a set of 20 best-practice guidelines. These
guidelines are further broken down into about 150 controls. The CIS Top 20 guidelines are
largely tactical and actionable technical defense controls that don’t emphasize overall cyber risk
management and governance.
HIPAA and HITECH. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act
(HITECH) are two standards that focus on protecting electronic personal health information
(ePHI) in the healthcare industry and in other industries that handle employee or customer health
records. These standards are legal requirements, industries must be in compliance with them, and
violations can lead to fines.
COBIT 5. ISACA developed the original version of Control Objectives for Information
and Related Technologies (COBIT) in 1996. COBIT 5 is the latest iteration of this framework,
which places emphasis on managing cybersecurity risk through compliance with effective IT
governance and management and on linking IT and cybersecurity objectives to business strategic
goals.
FFIEC CAT and FDIC InTREx. The FFIEC released its assessment tool, the CAT, in
2014 as a framework against which financial institutions can measure themselves. Institutions
can use this tool to assess their cybersecurity preparedness, which is determined by an
institution’s calculated inherent risk profile and cybersecurity across five domains, while taking
into account risk tolerance and business objectives. Unlike other frameworks, the CAT is more
rigid in requiring a number of the almost 500 maturity controls to be met before achieving
specific maturity levels. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has incorporated a
portion of the CAT controls into regulatory examination guidance for banks, with the
introduction of the Information Technology Risk Examination (InTREx) program in 2016.

20
PCI DSS. The PCI DSS is a continually updated set of information security standards
mandated by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. Unlike other standards and
frameworks, the scope of the PCI DSS only includes cardholder data, such as information
contained on credit cards. The controls in these standards are often very detailed and specific,
and organizations that are found to be in violation of these standards can be fined or might
receive increased fees from payment card brands, such as Visa and Discover.
Coming Changes in Internal Audit: While many internal audit organizations outsource large
portions of their general IT audit processes, the trend toward migrating these capabilities in-
house is clear. As internal audit departments begin to develop internal capabilities surrounding
cybersecurity in the coming years, many of the challenges they can expect to face will be similar
to challenges addressed when absorbing IT audit functions.
Beyond these broad trends, several other immediate opportunities are already presenting
themselves in many organizations. One such opportunity involves internal audit departments
taking a much deeper dive into application controls. In many instances, audits of application
controls are driven primarily by some sort of compliance requirement. For more in-depth
application controls examinations, auditors focus considerable attention on areas such as input
controls, data processing functions, output controls, and access management. As cybersecurity
comes more into focus for these areas, personnel with more advanced technical skills,
particularly with respect to homegrown, customized, or other nonstandard applications, will play
an important role in identifying additional technical controls that might be necessary.
Another area of expected change relates to business continuity planning, specifically
disaster recovery planning. While a good portion of IT auditors’ activities in these areas are
driven by standardized work programs and industry-accepted frameworks, these areas will likely
evolve into collaborative, risk-driven efforts. Most disaster recovery plans are written from an
operational perspective, with a focus on restoring production or other business-critical processes.
In future audits with a stronger cybersecurity focus, internal audit will likely be able to introduce
security questions and to point out how restoring operating capacity in a new environment could
introduce previously unrecognized security issues.
For now, many internal audit departments should concentrate on upgrading their teams’
existing skills in reviewing policies and procedures, confirming documentation for business

21
continuity and disaster recovery, and performing similar compliance-oriented tasks. The interim
objective would be to upgrade these capabilities through training and professional development
in order to address cybersecurity issues specifically. This objective would be achievable prior to
attempting to recruit and retain personnel with more technically oriented skills, as discussed in
the next section.

22
9. Future Skill Requirements
In order to perform the specialized assessments that will be required as part of the
growing emphasis on cybersecurity, internal audit ultimately will need to expand its skill base.
However, attracting talent with the necessary technical skills can be challenging. As such, it
often could be necessary for internal audit to access these skills by engaging outside resources. It
will be particularly important to develop or have access to specialized expertise in three general
areas:
9.1 System administration:
System administration includes technical understanding of servers, applications, database
platforms, and other functions that could be vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Internal audit
should have access to individuals with expertise in this area because it will be increasingly
difficult to audit such systems without being able to understand their configurations.
9.2 Network design and configuration:
Internal audit should also have access to individuals with expertise in the design of various
networks, including data and voice, across the organization. Many critical protection and
detection components are configured as part of a network, including firewalls and access control
lists (ACLs), intrusion detection systems (IDSs), and network access control (NAC) solutions.
9.3 Software development:
Internal audit departments do not have to be populated by people who can write code, but it is
important to have access to people who understand software development platforms and
development languages. In the Foundation’s survey, those participants who identified as CAEs
or directors were asked to rate the overall technical skill levels of their internal audit teams in
certain specific competencies within the three broad categories just described.
The competencies addressed were:
Microsoft Windows™ and Microsoft Active Directory™ software UNIX and Linux
Network design and implementation (such as Cisco and Palo Alto networks)
Database administration (such as Microsoft SQL Server™, Oracle, and MySQL databases)

23
Security information and event management (SIEM)
Telephony and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Software development
IT governance and risk
Penetration testing
The audit executives were asked to rate their teams on the following scale:
Novice — Understands basic networking, system, and cybersecurity concepts (accounts, etc.)
Intermediate — Retains a more in-depth knowledge of networking, systems administration,
network monitoring, and penetration testing and understands at a high level how these systems
work and the process of how to administer them
Advanced — Has extensive knowledge of IT and InfoSec systems, including hands-on
experience in either cybersecurity or IT
Exhibit 5: Skill Level of Internal Audit Teams
Skills Novice Intermediate Advanced
Microsoft
Windows and
Active
Directory
Software
30% 52% 17%
UNIX and
Linux
74% 22% 4%
Network
Design and
Implementati
on
74% 22% 4%
Database
Administratio
48% 43% 9%

24
n
SIEM 30% 57% 13%
Telephony/Vo
IP
65% 30% 4%
Software
Development
48% 43% 9%
IT
Governance
and Risk
13% 61% 26%
Penetration
Testing
57% 35% 9%
Source:
Crowe
analysis
High Skill Low Skill

25
10. Conclusion
As internal audit departments continue to adapt to their growing responsibilities in
validating the effectiveness of cybersecurity risk management, the responses recorded as part of
the Foundation’s research project can provide a valuable snapshot of the current state of the
profession — as well as a potential road map for the future.
As the survey participants indicated in their responses, a number of opportunities for
improvement exist in terms of improving the level of collaboration and support among the
various groups and interests involved, including IT, InfoSec, and the broad risk management
function. At the same time, the evolving responsibilities of internal audit in addressing
cybersecurity issues mean that audit professionals must develop their own clear understanding of
the principles of data security and the cyber frameworks that apply within their own
organizations.
Finally, recognizing the growing need for technical expertise and experience that is
specifically relevant to cybersecurity, audit executives will need to continue developing creative
ways of attracting and retaining talent with the requisite skills while also strengthening
relationships with other elements within the organization that can provide valuable guidance and
support.

26
References
➢ Stevens, Tim (11 June 2018). "Global Cybersecurity: New Directions in Theory and
Methods" (PDF). Politics and Governance. 6 (2): 1–4. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i2.1569
➢ Staff, AOL. "Cybersecurity expert: It will take a 'major event' for companies to take this
issue seriously". AOL.com. Archived from the original on 20 January 2017. Retrieved 22
January 2017.
➢ https://www.symantec.com/en/uk/security-center/threat-report
➢ https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/annual-threat-report.html

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