Discuss operational auditing. Include in your discussion what should be looked for in an operational audit and what methods might be used in the audit.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In an operational audit, a company's IT staff examine system logs to confirm whether they
are auditing needed information and not getting bogged down with unnecessary data. An
operational audit should look for the following:
Accounts that have weak passwords or no passwords
Accounts assigned to employees who have left the company or user group
New accounts that need to be checked against a list of authorized users

These audits might include attempts at social engineering-attempting to trick employees into divulging passwords or other information. Auditors who work onsite in financial institutions even look in trash cans to see whether computer printouts of confidential information have been discarded without being shredded. Another auditing strategy is a Tinkerbell program, in which network connections are scanned and alerts are generated when connection attempts are made from suspicious sites or logons are attempted from a suspicious IDPS.