Systems and equipment audits

Do you need to thoroughly test the security of key elements of your information system? The solution to these and many other associated problems is to perform a detailed security audit of specific systems and/or devices within your organization's information system.

While penetration testing puts us in the role of a potential attacker, technical security audits approach the element under examination more in the role of a system administrator and implementer of recommended measures to improve its security.

When checking the settings of individual systems, we use the knowledge and experience of our security and system specialists, manufacturers' recommendations for hardening the systems, etc. We describe all the identified deficiencies in detail in the audit report. We describe the risks of these vulnerabilities and, of course, suggestions for their elimination (or risk minimization).

Within the scope of technical audits, we provide the following services:

Audit of the configuration of active network elements
One of the riskiest places in the network, which is associated with a large number of unauthorized intrusions, are the active network elements. When analysing them, we mainly focus on the areas of static table settings on active network elements, NAT - address translation settings, network monitoring, administrative interface security, etc.

Audit of operating system configuration on the servers
The audit of operating systems (OS) configuration on the servers is performed using system resources and specialized tools. The audit is carried out by security specialists for each platform.
Windows system scanning is aimed at, for example, assessing password policy settings (password policy), audit policy, active directory, etc. UNIX operating systems are checked in particular in terms of configuration and security of services (/etc/conf/), etc.

Audit of firewall and IDS/IPS configuration
The analysis is carried out by firewall specialists who, from the position of an administrator, analyse the configuration of these key security features.

For firewalls, both the application security itself and the defined rules can be fully audited.
The result of the IDS/IPS analysis is primarily an assessment of the suitability of the client's system settings and possible suggestions for their optimization.

Security audit of special systems, applications and services
Audit of selected applications in terms of reliability, configuration, integrity, authentication and data confidentiality. This includes, for example, audits of application servers, database servers, web servers and many other applications and services, which may include areas such as security of critical data flows, application errors, the possibility of application abuse, application stability, implementation of encryption, PKI, etc.

Other specialized audits and tests (according to individual client requirements)

• PCI-DSS and PA-DSS compliant audits. 
• Specialized in-depth audits, where the type of audited device and its location and connection to other IT infrastructure are taken into account. They are not handled as a single audit, but as an audit of the entire infrastructure itself.
• Topology and infrastructure audits - review of the network or cloud topology in operation in terms of security of third party access, partners, employees, proposed DMZ departments and security of core systems, etc. 

When performing security audits, we utilize our comprehensive and continuously updated methodology based on the methodologies and recommendations of leading organizations dealing with information technology security:

• Manufacturers' recommendations on the hardening of audited HW, OS and SW.
• Recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) - an organization that issues RFCs, known as Internet standards.
• NIST recommendations (e.g. NIST SP 800-44 Guidelines on Securing Public Web Servers).
• CIS Benchmarks audits.
• CVE - Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures - standardized dictionary of common vulnerabilities and threats.
• Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408) - standard for assessing the level of security of systems, etc.