Compliance auditing is a type of assessment that judges how well an organization is accomplishing set goals or requirements. These goals and requirements can be internal or set by government, industry, and other regulatory agencies. Compliance auditing is an important part of maintaining a business, especially growing businesses, as it ensures that the organization is following all necessary security guidelines.

Compliance auditing may be a legal requirement for some industries, such as finance and medicine. Independent external auditors perform compliance audits to ensure that a target organization is fully abiding by the rules and regulations imposed by the government. This audit is a comprehensive investigation and review of the ongoing business processes. The audit requires a review of the security policy, access controls, risk management processes, and historical log files.

The focus of compliance audits varies based on industry, information type, and whether the organization is public or private. Auditors investigate an organization through documentation analysis, interviewing personnel, and combing through audit logs. Compliance auditing can examine recent security breaches, evaluate incident response, interview current and ex-employees, judge user access levels, interview executives over critical security concerns, and more.

Organizations are usually distinctly aware when compliance auditing is a mandated periodic occurrence. In those cases, companies should prepare for audits by collecting the various types of information and creating the appropriate records as needed by the auditor. In fact, establishing a standard practice of producing and archiving the necessary information is prudent. The goals of these actions are not to manipulate the data, but to provide adequate access to the facts and historical activities.

Organizations that do not have mandated compliance audits should consider self-imposed audits. The process of thoroughly investigating the compliance level with the stated security policy can improve the long-term stability and security of every organization. The act of self-assessment and improvement is a common characteristic of most successful IT organizations.