Six Best Practices When Preparing for Third-Party Audits

Depending on your business’s size, industry, and compliance needs, it will be subject to third-party audits. Businesses will typically choose to undergo a third-party audit with the goal of achieving or maintaining a security certification, such as SOC 2 (I and II), ISO, or PCI DSS. Get six best practices to help you prepare in this article.

While third-party audits are time-intensive, obtaining certifications is one of the most effective ways to provide assurance to prospective customers that your business adheres to industry-level security standards. Given the time-intensiveness of preparing for these audits as well as their frequency, one of the most common challenges is time management. Internal teams with already full plates that are not sufficiently prepared for what is coming will wind up taking each audit request as it comes. As a result, as each new request rolls in, they are unable to build their compliance activities out in a scalable and sustainable manner.

Selecting a baseline controls framework that meets multiple requirements across frameworks is one way to enable your organization to achieve its compliance objectives more efficiently. Download a copy of this article for additional best practices InfoSec teams can use to be well-prepared in advance of third-party audits, including:

Understanding and clearly defining the scope of the third-party audit: Many frameworks require a risk assessment over the subject matter in question in order to set the scope of a report. Look at the guidance provided by the governing body for the chosen compliance framework to help determine initial steps and set deadlines.

Collecting evidence early on: This allows you to get a pulse on the environment well in advance to eliminate surprises. Being able to self-identify and communicate issues you are already aware of is advantageous to early remediation.

Getting the right level of executive leadership involvement. Educate management on why the audit is taking place and when/where they will need to step in to get additional support for ensuring things are done timely. Agree to these protocols in advance so you can rely on their push when the time is needed.

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