Auditing applications involves evaluating the security, performance, and compliance of software programs or applications. The purpose of the audit is to identify any vulnerabilities, security risks, or issues that may impact the functionality or security of the applications, and to ensure that they meet established security policies and standards. The scope of an application audit can range from a single application to the entire portfolio of applications used by an organization.
The scope of an application audit typically includes:
- Security Review: Evaluating the application’s security, including the authentication and authorization processes, the use of encryption, and the storage and protection of sensitive data.
- Performance Evaluation: Assessing the performance of the application, including the response time, scalability, and availability.
- Code Review: Conduct a thorough review of the application code to identify any potential security vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows, SQL injection attacks, or cross-site scripting.
- Compliance Assessment: Verifying that the application complies with relevant laws, regulations, and organizational policies, such as data privacy and data retention policies.
- Threat Modeling: Identifying potential security threats and vulnerabilities in the application and evaluating the risk posed by each.
- Configuration Review: Evaluate the configuration of the application and the underlying infrastructure to ensure that they meet established security policies and standards.
- Data Flow Analysis: Analyzing the flow of data within the application to identify potential security risks or privacy concerns.
Steps to perform this Audit:
The steps for conducting an application audit may vary depending on the specific requirements of the organization and the goals of the audit. However, a general outline of the steps involved could be as follows:
- Define the scope of the audit: Determine the specific applications and aspects of the applications that will be evaluated, including the types of data processed, the architecture, and security measures.
- Plan the audit: Determine the resources required for the audit, including the tools and personnel needed, and develop a timeline for the audit.
- Prepare the environment: Set up the testing environment, including the tools and configurations required to conduct the audit.
- Collect data: Collect data on the applications, including the source code, configuration data, and performance data.
- Evaluate security: Evaluate the security of the applications, including the use of encryption, the presence of firewalls, and the security of configurations.
- Identify vulnerabilities: Identify any potential security threats or vulnerabilities in the applications.
- Evaluate compliance: Verify that the applications comply with relevant laws, regulations, and organizational policies, such as data privacy and data retention policies.
- Report findings: Prepare a report detailing the findings of the audit, including any potential security threats, vulnerabilities, or policy violations, and recommend remediation steps.
- Implement remediation: Implement any necessary remediation steps to address any issues identified during the audit, and monitor the applications to ensure they continue to operate securely and optimally.
Checklist for Best Practices
- Apply defense-in-depth.
- Use a positive security model.
- Fail safely.
- Run with the least privilege.
- Avoid security by obscurity.
- Keep security simple.
- Detect intrusions and keep logs.
- Never trust external infrastructure and services.
- Establish secure defaults.
- Use open standards.
Checklist for Auditing Applications
- Review and evaluate controls built into system transactions over the input of data.
- Determine the need for error/exception reports related to data integrity and evaluate whether this need has been filled.
- Review and evaluate the controls in place over data feeds to and from interfacing systems.
- If the same data is kept in multiple databases and/or systems, ensure that periodic sync processes are executed to detect any inconsistencies in the data.
- Review and evaluate the audit trails present in the system and the controls over those audit trails.
- Ensure that the system provides a means of tracing a transaction or piece of data from the beginning to the end of the process enabled by the system.
- Ensure that the application provides a mechanism that authenticates users, based, at a minimum, on a unique identifier for each user and a confidential password.
- Review and evaluate the application’s authorization mechanism to ensure users are not allowed to access any sensitive transactions or data without first being authorized by the system’s security mechanism.
- Ensure that the system’s security/authorization mechanism has an administrator function with appropriate controls and functionality.
- Determine whether the security mechanism enables any applicable approval processes.
- Evaluate controls regarding batch scheduling.
- Determine whether a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) has been performed on the application to establish backup and recovery needs.
- Ensure that appropriate backup controls are in place.
- Ensure that appropriate recovery controls are in place.
- Evaluate controls regarding the application’s data retention.
- Evaluate controls regarding data classification within the application.
- Evaluate overall user involvement and support for the application
Conclusion:
In conclusion, auditing applications is an important step in ensuring the security, performance, and compliance of software programs or applications. The purpose of the audit is to identify and address any potential security threats or vulnerabilities, verify compliance with relevant laws, regulations, and organizational policies, and ensure that the applications operate optimally and securely.