Why Is It Important to Prepare for a Cyber Security Audit in Advance?
Proper preparation turns the audit from a mandatory formality into a valuable assessment of your organisation's cyber resilience. The better an organisation understands its processes, risks, and responsibilities, the more value it gets from the audit's results and recommendations.
Preparation also has a direct impact on the duration and cost of the assessment – the more time auditors spend gathering missing information, the less time remains for deeper risk analysis and practical recommendations.
What Do Auditors Assess First?
In the first stage of the audit, auditors typically aim to understand the organisation's operations, critical processes, and overall approach to cyber security. Technology isn't the only thing that matters to auditors – how an organisation manages risk and makes security decisions matters just as much.
Under Lithuania’s Cyber Security Law and NIS2 Directive requirements, organisations must identify their most significant risks, apply proportionate protective measures, and demonstrate that these processes work in practice.
The following areas are typically reviewed first:
- the organisation's operating model,
- critical services and processes,
- the information systems in use,
- key responsible personnel,
- cyber security documentation,
- risk management practices.
When this information is easily accessible and clearly documented, the audit process becomes far more efficient.
Which Documents Are Worth Preparing Before a Cyber Security Audit?
An accurate inventory of information assets is one of the most important foundations for a successful audit. If an organisation doesn't know what it has, it becomes difficult to assess what needs protecting and what risks arise.
In practice, organisations often leave some systems off their official registers, keep using outdated platforms, or have cloud services managed by different teams.
Before the audit, it's recommended that you gather:
What Information Assets Does the Organisation Hold?
Another important aspect to consider is your organisation’s information assets, as they can help identify potential risks.
Before a cyber security audit, it's worth reviewing the organisation's:
- servers and infrastructure,
- cloud platforms,
- business systems,
- data stores,
- external suppliers,
- key data flows.
Under the National Cyber Security Centre's methodology, asset identification is one of the first stages of risk assessment, as it's the starting point for identifying threats and vulnerabilities later.
Is Risk Assessment Carried Out Regularly?
Risk management is one of the most important areas assessed during a cyber security audit. Auditors are generally more concerned with how a risk document is used than with whether it simply exists.
Many organisations have carried out an initial risk assessment. However, they often haven't reviewed it since their infrastructure changed, new systems were introduced, or regulatory requirements shifted.
Before the audit, it's worth checking:
- whether you've carried out a risk assessment,
- whether you've updated it within the past year,
- whether you've assigned risk owners,
- whether you've defined control measures for each risk,
- whether you're monitoring their implementation.
How Can You Assess Your Incident Management Readiness?
Auditors are often interested not only in how an organisation protects itself against incidents, but also in how it would respond if one occurred. Effective incident management is now just as important as preventive measures.
When assessing incident management, auditors typically look at:
- whether an incident management procedure exists,
- whether you've appointed responsible people,
- whether employees know the escalation process,
- whether you record incidents,
- whether you carry out post-incident reviews.
If an organisation can't show how it would act during an incident, auditors can't objectively assess its readiness.
What Are the Most Common Shortcomings Identified During a Cyber Security Audit?
Baltic Amadeus's cyber security experts have found that most of the shortcomings we identify during an audit relate less to technology than to processes and how responsibilities are divided. Knowing these common issues in advance helps organisations spot similar situations before the formal assessment and fix them on their own.
The most common shortcomings:
- Informal risk management – risks are assessed intuitively, without a clear, documented process or regular schedule,
- An outdated list of information resources – some systems, particularly cloud services or older platforms, aren't included in the official inventory,
- Inadequately managed supply chain risk – suppliers are assessed only when a contract is signed, rather than continuously throughout the relationship,
- Unclear division of responsibilities – it isn't clearly defined who is specifically responsible for risk assessment, incident management, or keeping documentation up to date,
- Insufficiently documented processes – measures are genuinely applied, but they aren't recorded in a way that can be demonstrated during the audit.
It's worth emphasising that these shortcomings are usually not a sign of negligence – they're a natural consequence of an organisation growing quickly and constantly changing. Knowing about them in advance is therefore just as valuable as having well-organised documentation.
What Evidence of Practice Do Auditors Look For?
One of the most important cyber security requirements is demonstrating that an organisation's security measures and processes hold up in real, day-to-day operations. Evidence is typically any documented record that confirms a process has taken place, rather than simply being described in a policy or procedure.
Depending on the area, evidence can include:
- activity logs and system event records (e.g. access logs, change records, or incident logs),
- document approval and sign-off records (e.g. management-approved policies, risk assessment reports, or signed supplier agreements),
- meeting minutes documenting decisions made, responsible parties, and agreed deadlines,
- training attendance records, as well as the results of knowledge assessments or simulation exercises,
- screenshots or system-generated reports demonstrating that a specific control is operating effectively (e.g. a security monitoring dashboard),
- email correspondence or task management records showing how the organisation responded to a particular situation in practice.
This evidence should reflect consistent practice over time, not a single instance – a single incident log or a single training record is usually not enough to convince an auditor that a process works systematically. It's therefore worth checking in advance whether the organisation can demonstrate how a document is used in day-to-day operations, not simply whether it exists.
Who Should Be Involved in the Audit Process?
One of the most common mistakes is assuming that only the technology or cyber security department is responsible for the audit. In reality, the assessment covers a much broader range of the organisation's processes.
Depending on the size of the organisation, those typically involved in the process include:
- IT and infrastructure specialists,
- the cyber security manager,
- the risk management team,
- process or quality managers,
- representatives from business units,
- senior management.
The earlier an organisation involves these parties in the preparation, the more smoothly the entire assessment process runs.
Checklist: How to Prepare for a Cyber Security Audit
To reduce preparation time and get the most value from the audit, review the key areas in advance. You can use this checklist as an initial preparation tool.
If you can answer "yes" to most of these questions, your organisation is likely already in a good position ahead of the audit.
How Does Baltic Amadeus Help You Prepare for a Cyber Security Audit?
Organisations achieve the best assessment results when the audit becomes part of a consistent cyber security strategy, rather than a one-off check. That's why Baltic Amadeus pays close attention not only to the assessment itself, but also to preparation.
Our experts help organisations better understand the Cyber Security Law and NIS2 Directive requirements that apply to them and objectively assess their current level of cyber security maturity. Working with clients, we identify potential gaps, conduct cyber risk assessments, and pinpoint the areas that need improvement.
Based on the assessment results, we put together a prioritised action plan that helps organisations plan changes purposefully and steadily strengthen their cyber resilience, making the most of the resources they already have.
Find out more about our approach to cyber security audits and risk management.
Where Should You Start Today?
You don't need to wait for the formal assessment to start preparing successfully for a cyber security audit. The first step is to assess your processes, risks and documentation objectively, and then steadily close the biggest gaps.
We've seen time and again that organisations which view the audit as an opportunity to strengthen their resilience tend to gain the most value from it. In that case, the assessment becomes a genuine basis for making better-informed decisions about technology, processes, and investment in cyber security.
