How to Pass Every Audit - Review

This one is pretty straightforward. You should review your policies, standards, metrics, and exceptions at least annually. There’s not much more to it than that. One of the biggest value-adds of a review is the prevention of scope creep and ensuring it is all properly defined.

The reality is that with the power of GenAI now, your metrics, your program, and the relevancy of your policies/standards can be continuously reviewed. Create a skill or an agent to continuously monitor and test them, and then let that be part of the continuous monitoring program. An agent could look for drift between your defined scope and the actual landscape in your environment. It could also look for differences in your policy/standard and the frameworks you adhere to. Perhaps NIST updates the CSF, it can do a review and provide suggestions. This doesn’t replace the annual review, but does supplement it. Automation supports the review process, but it can’t replace professional judgment.

Annual is also the floor. You should define triggers that generate off cycle reviews. These include the introduction of new technology, a security incident, a change in regulation, or a significant change in the threat landscape. Consider what would require a manual review here.

Lastly, there needs to be evidence. Have a small process defined for what the review entails, and then document who performed the review and when. Just include a dated sign off, version number on the doc, and a change log entry. That’s all the evidence you need.