IT Compliance Audit: Practical Checklist for IT Managers

The digital solutions that companies rely on to stay relevant and efficient in the world of work are the same technologies that leave them exposed to cybercriminals. In the U.S. alone, six in 10 companies' IT systems were hit by ransomware attacks in 2024, while business email compromise incidents impacted 22,000 people.

These events are far from a freak occurrence. Cybercriminals are continuously refining their tactics and deploying sophisticated attacks aimed at crippling businesses within moments. As these threats evolve, IT teams must remain vigilant by proactively identifying and mitigating security risks before they escalate into full-blown crises.

An IT compliance audit plays a crucial role in protecting organizations from cyberattacks and meeting relevant regulations. This guide explores these audits in more detail, including different types, best practices, and a practical checklist to work through.

What is an IT compliance audit?

An IT compliance audit is a structured evaluation of an organization's IT policies, security controls, and processes to check they meet regulatory, legal, and industry standards. It's a way to confirm that your IT environment is secure, compliant, and operates according to the latest security practices, which change frequently.

This review identifies security gaps, verifies adherence to frameworks like ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR, and helps avoid financial penalties and security breaches.

7 types of IT compliance audits

There are several IT compliance audits, each of which plays a critical role in strengthening IT security and regulatory adherence. Organizations may need multiple audits from the below list, depending on their industry, IT infrastructure, and risk profile:

IT general controls (ITGC) audits

An ITGC audit checks that foundational IT controls are available to support security, data integrity, and overall compliance. This audit type:

• Evaluates access management so only authorized users can interact with sensitive systems
• Assesses IT operations, including backup procedures, change management, and system maintenance
• Reviews system integrity by verifying that hardware and software work as intended and are protected from any unauthorized modification

Cybersecurity audits

Regular cybersecurity audits focus on an organization’s defenses against data breaches and other cyber threats. These audits:

• Examine the effectiveness of key security devices, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and endpoint security solutions
• Review encryption protocols to check data is protected both in storage and during transmission
• Oversee vulnerability management, penetration testing, and security patching processes

See also: Top 10 MDM Solutions for Improving Device Security and Workforce Efficiency

Regulatory compliance audits

Your organization will need to satisfy the red tape and meet various industry-specific rules. Regulatory compliance audits:

• Ensure PCI Data Security Standard compliance for businesses handling credit card transactions
• Confirm HIPAA adherence for healthcare organizations managing patient data
• Validate ISO 27001 security policies for businesses following international security standards

Governance audits

Conducting the audit through a governance lens is all about evaluating how well your organization’s IT compliance strategy aligns with business objectives and risk management frameworks. The audit:

• Achieves alignment with best practices using frameworks like the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
• Examines risk management strategies, identifying weaknesses in your internal IT decision-making
• Reviews regulatory oversight, confirming leadership accountability in how compliance is enforced throughout your business

Third-party and vendor audits

Alongside your internal systems and workflows, every external vendor or third party your organization deals with should also adhere to strict security and compliance requirements. Think of any partner organization as being an extension of your business. With this in mind, your audit must:

• Evaluate vendor security controls to check they meet contractual and regulatory obligations
• Review their data handling and storage policies to check all shared information remains safe and protected
• Assess supply chain risks, identifying any potential vulnerabilities in their partner relationships, which may go several levels deep

Disaster recovery and business continuity audits

Your organization should have the ability to recover quickly from any type of IT disruption or data loss incidents. To test disaster-readiness, this type of audit will:

• Evaluate backup and recovery procedures, ensuring your business-critical data is always retrievable
• Review business continuity plans to determine the organization's strategy in case of system failures
• Assess past security incidents to measure detection speed, response coordination, and recovery efficiency

Access control and change management audits

It’s crucial for IT teams to keep a close eye on *who *has access to their systems. An audit of this type should:

• Enable proper user authentication and role-based access controls (RBAC)
• Review change management procedures, verifying all system updates and patches follow compliance guidelines
• Examine privileged access management (PAM), checking your administrative accounts are monitored and protected

IT compliance audit checklist

Use this quick-reference guide to ensure your organization meets compliance requirements and maintains a secure IT environment. Feel free to customize the list according to the type of audit you’re preparing for. Each step should help prevent costly security breaches and regulatory penalties.

Define audit scope and regulatory requirements

✔ Identify applicable laws and standards

Research industry-specific compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR) and confirm their relevance with your legal counsel or compliance officers.

✔ Map compliance requirements to business processes

Understand where your customer data is currently stored, how it flows through your systems, and which teams handle sensitive information.

✔ Establish internal controls

Implement company-wide policies that enforce compliance, such as security protocols, incident reporting, and employee training programs.

Conduct a compliance risk assessment

✔ Perform a gap analysis

Compare current security controls against required compliance standards to pinpoint any existing weaknesses.

✔ Assess risks in cloud, network, and endpoint security

Evaluate exposure to unauthorized access, unpatched software, and weak authentication.

✔ Prioritize remediation efforts

Rank risks by severity and create an action plan to address high-impact vulnerabilities first.

Strengthen access controls and user permissions

✔ Limit admin access

Apply the principle of least privilege (PoLP.) Employees should only have access to what they need, not what they think they need.

✔ Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Require MFA for accessing sensitive systems and accounts.

✔ Conduct regular access audits

Review permissions quarterly and deactivate inactive accounts immediately; for example, in the case of employee departures or internal moves.

Enforce security measures and data encryption

✔ Encrypt sensitive data

Use AES-256 encryption for data at rest and TLS encryption for data in transit.

✔ Run penetration tests

Simulate attacks on your infrastructure to identify and fix vulnerabilities before they’re exploited.

✔ Apply security patches

Prioritize critical patches and use a staging or sandbox environment to prevent patches from introducing new vulnerabilities or disrupting operations.

Automate IT asset tracking and compliance documentation

✔ Use an IT asset management system

Keep a real-time inventory of devices, applications, and cloud resources.

✔ Automate compliance monitoring

Deploy tools that track policy violations and security misconfigurations.

✔ Maintain audit-ready documentation

Store policies, risk assessments, and incident reports in a centralized, easily accessible system.

Test security incident response

✔ Develop an incident response plan

Establish clear roles, escalation procedures, and response workflows for different types of incidents.

✔ Ensure regulatory compliance

Align response plans with legal requirements for breach notifications, ensuring timely communication with regulators and affected parties.

✔ Improve response times

Analyze previous security incidents and refine response strategies to mitigate future risks faster and more effectively.

Prepare for external auditors and regulatory reviews

✔ Conduct internal pre-audits

Identify and fix compliance gaps before external auditors review your security controls.

✔ Engage with auditors proactively

Schedule regular compliance check-ins with external auditors to learn what they’re looking for and address any potential issues before formal reviews.

✔ Assess leadership and team readiness

Train key personnel on audit processes so they can efficiently provide required evidence and documentation.

How to conduct an internal IT compliance audit

An internal IT compliance audit is a proactive strategy that allows organizations to prepare their security controls, policies, and processes before they’re tested formally in an external regulatory review. Businesses can extract the most value from this internal exercise by following a step-by-step approach:

Step 1: Define your compliance landscape

Before jumping into the audit process, take a step back and understand what compliance means for your organization. Regulations like ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR each come with unique requirements, and your industry and operational scope will dictate which ones apply.

Once you’ve identified the relevant standards — of which there may be several — map each to your current policies and procedures.

Step 2: Assemble the right team and assign responsibilities

Compliance is far from an IT-only responsibility; it spans several departments, including information security, legal, HR, and finance. Ask the following questions to understand how each business function relates to compliance, and who from each team be involved:

• Who is responsible for overseeing user access?
• Who handles risk assessments?
• Who maintains audit documentation?

Assigning ownership at this point ensures accountability and prevents last-minute scrambles for information.

Tip: If your organization works with third-party vendors, remember to determine how they factor into the audit process, too. You may need to speak directly to their compliance teams to access key information for your own internal audit.

Step 3: Evaluate your existing security controls

With your team in place, it’s time to examine the security controls that protect your data and IT systems. Policies and frameworks are only effective if they’re implemented correctly, so check:

• Are access permissions set according to the principle of least privilege?
• Is multi-factor authentication enforced?
• Are encryption standards being followed for data at rest and in transit?

Step 4: Run a risk assessment

Even the most secure IT environments have vulnerabilities, but where are yours?. A thorough risk assessment is essential for exposing any weak spots before they become major threats. This step involves running penetration tests, scanning for vulnerabilities, and analyzing past security incidents for any recurring issues your business has struggled with.

Step 5: Conduct a mock audit to test readiness

A mock audit is one of the best ways to prepare for an external IT compliance audit. Think of it as a dress rehearsal for the real thing—a way to test your organization's preparedness without the pressure of external scrutiny.

A mock audit should simulate an official compliance review, evaluating how well your policies, documentation, and security controls stand up to regulatory requirements. It can also spot current gaps in your documentation or areas where your IT teams aren't enforcing security policies consistently or as expected.

Along with uncovering IT compliance risks early, this exercise also checks that your teams are confident and well-versed in responding to regulatory inquiries, so there’s less pressure during the real audit.

Step 6: Strengthen compliance with technology

Manual compliance tracking is time-consuming and prone to human error, even if you’re using digital solutions like spreadsheets to keep things organized. A better bet is to opt for dedicated IT compliance audit software, which simplifies processes like:

• Automating asset management
• Monitoring policy adherence
• Flagging security misconfigurations

Quality compliance tools include a centralized dashboard where teams can track compliance statuses, generate reports, and align security measures with current regulatory requirements. Automation is another priority feature, allowing IT teams to build sequential workflows that run in the background, freeing up time for more high-impact work.

See also: 10 Best Hardware Inventory Software to Streamline IT in 2025

Step 7: Document everything

Regulatory bodies require evidence of everything compliance-related. Any disorganization of your compliance documentation can turn an audit into a nightmare, so we recommend keeping all your policies, risk assessments, security configurations, incident response plans, and change logs well-maintained and readily accessible.

An audit trail also allows your teams to track security improvements over time, helping you stay ahead of evolving threats.

Step 8: Continuously monitor and improve

Compliance and security require continuous monitoring and adaptation; if you take your eye off the ball for a second, that’s when you’ll be hit with a cyberattack.

Implement a system for ongoing compliance checks throughout the year, such as using automated monitoring tools or hosting regular internal audits to ensure watertight compliance as threats multiply and evolve.

Common IT compliance audit challenges

IT compliance audits are an essential safeguard against operational, financial, and reputational risks. Nevertheless, it’s common for businesses to encounter several obstacles as they grapple with the audit process, including:

Incomplete or outdated documentation

Your business needs to prove every step you take to secure your data, and you’ll struggle to demonstrate compliance without accurate records of these efforts. If your teams don't write up their reports or flag any issues in writing, this could leave gaps that auditors and cybercriminals may exploit.

Weak access controls and user permissions

Poorly defined access controls or excessive user privileges create significant security risks. Imagine a customer service representative has unnecessary admin access to the company's user database and unknowingly downloads a file containing thousands of customer passwords.

Organizations can enforce the principle of least privilege and implement robust identity and access management (IAM) frameworks so only authorized personnel have access to sensitive systems and data.

Inadequate encryption and security policies

Despite growing regulatory requirements, many businesses still lack consistent encryption protocols and well-defined data protection policies. When this is missing on a company-wide level, it increases the company’s exposure to cyber threats and non-compliance penalties. It’s concerning, then, that 67% of organizations report their employees lack fundamental security awareness.

Failure to track IT assets and third-party risks

With an expanding IT ecosystem that includes cloud environments, mobile devices, and third-party vendors, organizations often struggle to maintain visibility over their entire digital infrastructure. Unmonitored assets and insufficient vendor risk assessments can introduce compliance gaps and security vulnerabilities.

See also: IT Asset Tracking: A Complete Guide to Smarter Device Management

4 real-world examples of failed IT compliance

Companies should be aware of the repercussions when they put IT compliance on the back burner. If the following big-name enterprise companies can be caught out, this proves *every *organization could be at risk.

1. Morgan Stanley received a $60 million fine for improper IT asset disposal

In 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) imposed a $60 million fine on Morgan Stanley for failing to oversee two data centers' decommission in 2016. The bank had hired a third-party vendor to wipe data from servers and hardware, but sensitive customer information remained on the devices after they were sold to a recycler. ​

The financial services company issued the following statement to safeguard its reputation:

“We have continuously monitored the situation and we do not believe that any of our clients’ information has been accessed or misused. Moreover, we have instituted enhanced security procedures, including continuous fraud monitoring, and will continue to strengthen the controls that we have in place to protect our clients’ information.”

2. British Airways received a £20 million fine for violating GDPR regulations

In 2018, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) hit British Airways with a £20 million fine following a significant data breach affecting more than 400,000 customers. An ICO investigation concluded that the airline had processed a significant volume of personal data without using effective security measures. As a result, BA did not detect that they'd been the victim of a cyber incident for at least two months. ICO found BA at fault and determined that the cyberattack was entirely preventable.

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “People entrusted their personal details to BA and BA failed to take adequate measures to keep those details secure. Their failure to act was unacceptable and affected hundreds of thousands of people, which may have caused some anxiety and distress as a result. That’s why we have issued BA with a £20m fine — our biggest to date.”

3. Zoom was found guilty of deceiving customers with false encryption claims

In 2020, Zoom Video Communications came under fire for misleading customers about the level of encryption it provided. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that Zoom misrepresented its security features, falsely advertising "end-to-end, 256-bit encryption" when the level of security offered was much lower.

Additionally, the FTC highlighted several security lapses in Zoom’s practices, such as storing recorded meetings on its servers in an unencrypted format for up to 60 days, leaving them vulnerable to unauthorized access.

In November 2020, Zoom reached a settlement with the FTC, agreeing to implement enhanced security measures, including stronger encryption protocols, vulnerability management programs, and restrictions on unauthorized software installations.

4. Capital One received a $80 million fine for cloud security misconfiguration

In 2020, Capital One Financial Corp. was fined $80 million by the OCC due to a 2019 data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million customers in the U.S. and Canada. The breach was caused by a misconfigured firewall in the bank’s cloud storage, which a former Amazon Web Services (AWS) employee, Paige A. Thompson, exploited to gain unauthorized access to sensitive financial data.

The OCC found that Capital One had failed to establish effective risk management practices before migrating data to the cloud. And without proper oversight of third-party service providers, this lead to extensive security vulnerabilities.

How Deel IT helps businesses pass audits without delays

Deel IT is the platform you need to stay organized, compliant, and confident about your upcoming IT audit. Our solution offers the following features to help global companies manage and automate IT compliance across 130 countries:

• Real-time IT asset tracking: Monitors all hardware, software, and cloud resources from a single dashboard, ensuring devices meet security and regulatory requirements
• Automated access controls: Streamlines user access management by granting and revoking permissions, enforcing least-privilege policies, and ensuring compliance with ISO 27001, HIPAA, and PCI DSS
• Audit-ready compliance reporting: Generates automated reports that document security controls, software licensing, and IT governance policies, making external audits faster and more efficient​
• Built-in security and compliance: Ensures IT security aligns with global compliance regulations by integrating device encryption, endpoint protection, and mobile device management (MDM) solutions
• Vendor compliance monitoring: Tracks third-party IT vendors to ensure they meet regulatory and security standards, reducing supply chain risks​

Ready to prepare for your upcoming IT compliance audit? Achieve watertight security by booking a free Deel IT demo today.