Audit Services

Cyber Security Audit Services

A cyber security audit is a structured review of how your organisation is actually protected: your systems, accounts, suppliers, policies and day to day working practices.

It looks at what is in place, how well it works, and where the real weaknesses sit, rather than assuming a firewall and antivirus is enough. For most SMEs, this is the point where guesswork stops: you get a plain-English picture of your exposure, a prioritised list of fixes, and evidence you can show to customers, insurers and auditors.

It also does the groundwork for compliance, mapping what you have against Cyber Essentials controls and your GDPR obligations around securing personal data, so certification and data protection questions become far easier to answer honestly.

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What Our Cyber Security Audits Cover

Security Posture Reviews

A thorough, honest assessment of where your organisation stands. We examine controls, processes and documentation to give you a clear picture of your current security posture.

Gap Analysis

Identify the gaps between where you are and where you need to be. We map findings against recognised frameworks to provide structured, prioritised recommendations.

Risk Identification

Uncover genuine risks — not theoretical ones. We focus on the threats and vulnerabilities that are most relevant to your organisation, sector and operating environment.

Actionable Recommendations

Every audit concludes with clear, practical recommendations. No 200-page reports gathering dust — just structured guidance your teams can act on.

What's Included in Our Cyber Security Audit

Every audit is scoped to your environment, but the core work below is what most SMEs need to get an honest, evidence-based view of their exposure.

Network Security Review

We look at how your network is actually put together: firewall rules, remote access, wireless, segmentation between office and server traffic, and anything exposed to the internet. Old rules nobody remembers adding, open ports left over from a project, and flat networks where one compromised laptop can reach everything are common findings. You get a clear view of what is reachable, by whom, and what should be closed down or separated.

Endpoint Assessment

Laptops, desktops, servers and mobile devices are where most incidents start. We check patching levels, operating system support status, disk encryption, antivirus or EDR coverage, local admin rights and device management. The aim is to find the gap between the policy you think you have and the state of the machines your staff are actually using every day.

Access Control Review

We review who has access to what, and whether that still makes sense. That covers user accounts, shared logins, leavers who were never removed, admin and privileged accounts, service accounts, and whether multi-factor authentication is enforced everywhere it should be. Excessive permissions and forgotten accounts are among the easiest issues to fix and among the most damaging when ignored.

Email Security Check

Email remains the most common route in, so we test the controls around it. We check SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, spam and phishing filtering, external sender warnings, mailbox forwarding rules, and how well your setup resists impersonation of your own domain. We also look at what would happen if a mailbox were compromised, and whether you would notice.

Vulnerability Scan

We run external and authenticated scanning across your in-scope systems to identify missing patches, unsupported software, weak configurations and known vulnerabilities. Results are triaged rather than dumped on you, so you can see what is genuinely exploitable in your environment and what is background noise that can wait.

Final Report and Action Plan

You receive a written report in plain English: what we found, why it matters, and the risk each issue carries. Alongside it comes a prioritised action plan covering quick wins, short-term fixes and longer-term improvements, with an indication of effort for each. It is written to be usable by your IT provider or internal team, and readable by leadership, insurers and customers asking security questions.

Network Security Audit

A network security audit is the part of the wider review that focuses on the paths into and across your systems. We map what you actually have, rather than what the original design documents say: internet-facing services, firewall and router rules, VPN and remote access, wireless networks and guest access, VLANs and segmentation, and the connections you allow out to suppliers or cloud platforms.

From there we test whether those controls hold up. That means reviewing rule sets for anything overly permissive or long forgotten, checking that management interfaces are not exposed, confirming firmware and device support status, verifying logging and alerting are switched on and going somewhere useful, and looking at how far an attacker could move if a single machine or account were compromised.

It matters because network weaknesses are quiet. Nothing breaks when a temporary firewall rule stays open for three years or when the office network lets a compromised laptop reach the finance server. The impact only shows up during an incident, and by then the cost is remediation, downtime and disclosure rather than a configuration change.

Within the full audit, the network review sets the boundary. Endpoint, access control and email findings tell us where an attacker could get in; the network picture tells us how far that foothold would travel and what it would reach. The two together are what turn a list of technical issues into a prioritised action plan, and they feed directly into Cyber Essentials firewall and secure configuration requirements. Network security audits can also be delivered on their own if that is the specific area you need assurance over.

Why Cyber Security Auditing Matters

A cyber security audit provides an objective, evidence-based assessment of your organisation's security controls, policies and processes. Without regular auditing, vulnerabilities accumulate, compliance gaps widen, and the risk of a damaging incident increases.

Our cyber security audit services are designed for organisations of all sizes — from SMEs looking for a baseline assessment to enterprise organisations managing complex environments. We audit against recognised frameworks and provide practical, prioritised recommendations that your teams can act on immediately.

What Good Audit Work Should Deliver

A good audit should do more than confirm that issues exist. It should help leadership understand where exposure sits, why it matters, what good looks like, and how to move from current state to a more defensible control position.

We focus on practical security assurance. That means identifying material issues, distinguishing real risk from background noise, and producing findings that support better decisions rather than overwhelming teams with low-value observations.

Common Audit Focus Areas

●Identity, access and privileged account controls
●Control design and evidence maturity
●Security governance and accountability
●Framework alignment and assurance gaps
●Operational weaknesses affecting audit readiness
●Remediation planning and control prioritisation

Our Audit Process

Scoping Call

A short call to understand your organisation, your systems, your sector and what is prompting the audit. We agree what is in scope, what evidence we will need and how much of your team's time it will take, then confirm cost and timescales up front.

Assessment

We carry out the review: network and firewall configuration, endpoints, accounts and access, email security and vulnerability scanning, alongside the policies and processes behind them. Most of this happens in the background, so day to day work is not disrupted.

Report

You get a written report in plain English covering what we found, why each issue matters and the risk it carries, mapped to Cyber Essentials, GDPR or whichever framework applies. We walk you through it rather than emailing it over and leaving you to interpret it.

Action Plan

A prioritised plan of fixes: quick wins first, then short-term and longer-term improvements, each with an indication of effort and owner. It is written so your IT provider or internal team can pick it up and start work, and we can support delivery or re-check progress later.

Cyber Controls Assurance and Ongoing Monitoring

An audit is a snapshot. It tells you how your controls looked on the day we assessed them, which is genuinely useful, but environments move. New starters join, suppliers get connected, software goes end of support, a firewall rule gets opened for a project and never closed. Within a few months the report describes a business that no longer exists.

Cyber controls assurance is the step beyond that. Rather than proving your controls existed once, it establishes that they keep working: that patching is still happening, that multi-factor authentication is still enforced on every account, that leavers are still being removed, that backups still restore, and that someone is still reading the alerts. It shifts the question from "did we pass?" to "are we still protected, and can we show it?".

In practice we do this through periodic re-checks against your action plan, recurring vulnerability scanning, monitoring of key control indicators, and a short written update you can put in front of leadership, insurers or customers. Where a control has drifted, you find out from us rather than from an incident or a failed certification.

This is also what makes annual certification manageable. Continuous cyber assurance means Cyber Essentials renewal, ISO 27001 surveillance or a client security questionnaire becomes a matter of collecting evidence you already hold, instead of a scramble every twelve months. If you would like this ongoing, we can build it into a retained arrangement alongside your audit readiness work.

Frameworks We Audit Against

Our cyber security audits can be aligned to any recognised framework or standard. We have deep expertise across:

GDPR NCSC CAF DSPT Cyber Essentials Cyber Essentials Plus ISO 27001

From Audit to Action

What makes DLC Tech Solutions different is our ability to connect audit findings to technical delivery. When an audit identifies gaps in access management, Active Directory configuration, or identity lifecycle processes — we can deliver the remediation work as well. This means faster progress, fewer handoffs, and a coherent improvement programme.

Clarity for Leadership

We help decision-makers understand where risk is concentrated, what action is needed, and how findings affect assurance, compliance and resilience.

Practical Follow-Through

Recommendations are structured for real implementation, with sensible sequencing and enough context for teams to act confidently.

Connected Services

Where needed, we link audit outputs directly into audit readiness, technical remediation and wider programme leadership support.

Related Services

Prepare for external assessments with our audit readiness services. For GDPR-specific assessments, see our dedicated GDPR audit page. Need ongoing cyber security support? We offer retained advisory and delivery services.

Cyber Security Audit FAQs

Key questions from organisations considering a cyber security audit or broader assurance review.

What is a cyber security audit?

A cyber security audit is a structured review of how well your organisation is actually protected. It examines your network and firewalls, devices, user accounts and access rights, email security, patching and the policies and processes behind them, then tests whether those controls work in practice rather than only on paper. The output is a plain-English report of what was found, the risk each issue carries, and a prioritised plan of fixes.

How much does a cyber security audit cost?

Cost depends on scope: the number of users, sites, servers and cloud platforms in scope, and whether you need alignment to a specific framework such as Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001. For a typical UK SME an audit is usually a few days of work, and we confirm a fixed price after a short scoping call so there are no surprises. If you want to gauge your position before committing to anything, our free cyber health check is a no-cost starting point.

What is IT audit and assurance?

IT audit is the assessment itself: independently checking that controls over your systems, data and access are designed sensibly and operating as intended. Assurance is the confidence that assessment provides to the people who need it, such as your board, your insurer, your customers or a certification body. Put simply, the audit produces the evidence and assurance is what that evidence lets you demonstrate, which is why ongoing cyber controls assurance matters as much as the one-off review.

How long does a cyber security audit take?

For most SMEs the fieldwork takes three to five working days, with the report and action plan delivered within a week or two of completion. Larger or more complex environments, or audits scoped against a formal framework, take longer. Your team's involvement is usually limited to a scoping call, providing access and evidence, and a handful of short conversations, so day to day work is not disrupted.

What is the purpose of a cyber security audit?

A cyber security audit gives you an evidence-based view of how well your controls, processes and governance are working. It helps identify genuine gaps, clarify priorities, and create a defensible basis for remediation, assurance and leadership decision-making.

How is a cyber security audit different from a penetration test?

A penetration test focuses on identifying exploitable technical weaknesses in systems. A cyber security audit is broader: it reviews governance, policies, control design, operational maturity, documentation and technical control effectiveness across the organisation.

Do you tailor the audit to our framework or sector?

Yes. We scope audits around your environment, risk profile, regulatory pressure and business objectives. That may involve alignment to frameworks such as GDPR, Cyber Essentials, NCSC CAF or ISO 27001, and tailoring for sectors such as healthcare, telecoms or growing SMEs.

What happens after the audit is complete?

The audit should be the start of improvement, not the end of the exercise. We help clients prioritise remediation, support technical follow-up work, and provide wider audit readiness or programme leadership support where needed.

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