Cloud Security Auditing Techniques

Dear IT Auditors, ITGC in Cloud-Native Teams Many organizations have embraced cloud platforms like AWS and Azure, but very few know how to audit IT General Controls (ITGCs) in a cloud-native environment. Traditional ITGC testing relied on on-premises systems, familiar roles, and predictable evidence. Cloud-native teams change the rules. When developers can spin up resources in minutes and infrastructure is managed as code, how do you validate that controls exist and work without slowing the business down? That’s where modern IT audit practices come in. 📌 Access Management: Instead of static AD groups, cloud environments use identity and access management (IAM) policies. You need to review policies, roles, and entitlements at scale. Focus on least privilege, segregation of duties, and rotation of credentials. 📌 Change Management: Cloud-native teams use pipelines like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Azure DevOps. Your role is to confirm that code changes to infrastructure or applications follow peer review, approval, and automated testing. Ask: Can the organization trace who made changes and when? 📌 Operations Controls: Logs, alerts, and monitoring are built into cloud platforms. The test isn’t whether logs exist—it’s whether logs are retained, reviewed, and tied to incident response. Look at CloudTrail in AWS or Activity Logs in Azure and test for completeness and retention. 📌 Evidence Collection: Screenshots aren’t enough. Cloud platforms produce system-generated evidence like JSON files, configuration exports, and automated compliance scans. As an auditor, you should guide teams to provide structured evidence that regulators and executives trust. 📌 Collaboration with DevOps: The biggest shift is cultural. IT auditors can’t audit cloud-native teams with a checklist designed for 2005. You need to understand the language of developers, containers, and automation, then translate it into assurance terms. Collaboration builds trust, and trust drives better controls. Cloud adoption is accelerating. The question for auditors is simple: are you testing ITGCs the old way, or are you building assurance into the way cloud teams actually work? #ITAudit #CloudAudit #ITGC #AWS #Azure #DevOps #Assurance #RiskManagement #CyberSecurityAudit #GRC #InternalAudit

Cloud Audit A cloud audit means checking if a company’s cloud systems are safe, well controlled, and following required rules like SOX, GDPR, or ISO. Today, many companies use cloud services like Oracle Cloud, AWS, Azure, or Salesforce instead of managing their own servers. This changes the way audits are done. In cloud systems, some parts are handled by the cloud provider, and some parts are managed by the company using the cloud. This is called shared responsibility. For example, the cloud provider takes care of things like physical security and server setup. The company is responsible for things like user access, data protection, and reviewing activity logs. There are three common types of cloud services. In Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the company manages the operating system and firewall. In Platform as a Service (PaaS), the company uses tools like databases but does not manage the full system. In Software as a Service (SaaS), like Oracle Fusion or Salesforce, the provider manages everything except for the company's users and data. If a company uses Oracle Fusion Cloud for finance work, they cannot test the server or network controls because Oracle handles that. Instead, the auditor uses Oracle’s SOC 1 Type 2 report. This report is prepared by an independent auditor and tells whether Oracle's controls were working properly during the year. The company must still do their part, such as reviewing user access, managing roles, and following their own internal controls. If they don’t do this, the auditor cannot fully rely on Oracle’s report. Some key areas to check in a cloud audit include: Who has access to the system and data Whether multi-factor authentication is enabled Whether important data is encrypted If changes to systems are tracked properly If logs and alerts are active Whether data is backed up and tested for recovery If third-party reports are used and understood. To perform a cloud audit, first understand the system architecture. Ask the client to explain what cloud services they use and how they use them. Then, find out which controls are managed by the provider and which are the client’s responsibility. Always check if the client has reviewed the cloud provider’s SOC report. Also confirm if they have done their own part of the control work. For example, if the report says that the company must do user access reviews every quarter, check if they are really doing it. Common mistakes in cloud audits include relying on SOC 1 Type 1 reports instead of Type 2, ignoring the customer responsibilities listed in the report, assuming the cloud provider handles everything, or missing key risks like unrestricted user access or no data backup testing. In summary, cloud audit is about focusing on what the company controls in the cloud and using trusted reports to cover what the cloud provider manages. It requires good understanding, careful planning, and checking both the company’s and the provider’s roles. #itgc #itsox

#cloudgovernance audit: I led a Cloud governance audit sometime back for a #f500 bank. These were our focus areas of the audit. Anything additional that you would cover? 1. Existence of a standalone Cloud strategy 2. Business value realization tracking 3. People risk: a. Staffing adjustments in alignment with business case b. Tracking of training for both Tech and Info Sec team 4. Metric reporting to senior leadership a. Do metrics include all cloud assets 5. Risk assessment of company’s risk/control matrix against industry frameworks such as FFIEC guidance, CSA/ NIST frameworks 6. Cloud operating model: a. Cloud policies/ procedures b. Consistent design in cloud using templates (e.g. Azure Blueprints) c. Segregation of environment based on data sensitivity (e.g. PII, PCI data) 7. SaaS oversight: a. Third party risk oversight of SaaS providers b. Service level monitoring c. Exit plan monitoring #cyber #cybersecurity #thirdparty #fintech #cyberresilience #cloudsecurity #itaudit #saas