IT Audit: Cloud Audit Fundamentals - AWS, Azure, GCP

Explore cloud governance as a framework of policies, processes, and controls that guide migration with security, regulatory compliance, and lifecycle management, aligning provider choices and services with organizational goals.

Explore cloudification as organizations migrate from on-premises to cloud-based solutions, leveraging cloud-native services, scalability, cost optimization, and enhanced accessibility while considering security, compliance, and a modernization strategy.

Explore the risks of migrating to cloud platforms, including data security and privacy, insider threats, misconfigurations, outages, data location, compliance, cost, and legacy modernization, with strategies for containment and continuity.

Explain the shared responsibility model in cloud services, detailing which security tasks belong to providers and which to customers. Customers retain data security accountability even in SaaS.

Explore the scope of audits beyond finance, including IT audits such as cloud and cybersecurity audits, and distinguish internal audits, financial statement audits, and attestation engagements like SoC audits.

Define IT audit as the examination and evaluation of an organization's IT infrastructure, controls, and processes, covering cloud, cybersecurity, SoC, Sox, information systems, and compliance audits.

Conduct cloud audits by IT auditors, either internal staff or external CPA firms; external audits provide assurance to lenders, investors, and customers annually.

Adopt a cloud framework to standardize practices, governance, and risk management across cloud resources. Align adoption with organizational goals and optimize cost, performance, architecture, and integration for secure, scalable deployments.

Examine cloud frameworks used by organizations, including NIST guidelines on security and privacy in cloud computing and ISO 27,017. Review the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix and its shared responsibility model.

A control is a policy or procedure that provides reasonable assurance that an IT environment operates correctly, data is reliable, and the organization complies with laws and regulations.

Identify control weaknesses by testing the design and effectiveness of IT controls implemented by management, and identify a control gap when no control exists where expected.

Understand what constitutes appropriately designed controls by examining planning, implementation, and how a control addresses specific risks and objectives, illustrated with surveillance and password policy examples.

Assess how control effectiveness depends on ongoing execution and consistency, using the daily code-change door security example to show when a control fails to achieve its purpose.

Identify what a control gap is when a required control is missing, using a self-checkout example. Highlight the risk of unauthorized loss and the need for controls.

Audit cloud controls using the Cloud Controls Matrix from the Cloud Security Alliance to guide testing and monitoring, aligned with NIST and ISO 27017 practices.

Explore CSA control domains within the cloud controls matrix, detailing governance, risk and compliance, identity and access management, data security and privacy, cryptography, incident management, and business continuity.

Acknowledge that the cloud audit process stays the same across financial statement, internal, and attestation audits, with four IT audit phases: the planet face, fieldwork, reporting, and follow up.

Define the audit objective, scope, and risk considerations in the planning phase to guide cloud audit testing. Outline the sampling methodology, sample size, kickoff, and the PBC list for fieldwork.

In the reporting phase, document and present audit results as a written report, detailing control test outcomes, draft reports for managers with remediation plans, and final exit memos or meetings.

During the follow-up phase, verify corrective actions with the audit client or business unit, confirm implementation and results, collect evidence, and retest processes until the deficiency is closed.

Explore application and interface security control testing to validate integrity, confidentiality, and availability, covering policy requirements, secure software development life cycle, automated testing, and automated deployment with segregation of duties.

Assess governance, risk, and compliance controls to uphold information governance policy, risk management program, and information security policy for cloud security, privacy, and data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Assess identity and access management controls by reviewing IAM policy, password policy, segregation of duties, least privilege, provisioning and revocation, and strong authentication such as MFA and SSO.

Evaluate data security and privacy controls across the data lifecycle by testing policies, disposal procedures, data flow diagrams, and data protection by design, ensuring encrypted transfers and compliant retention.

Assess logging and monitoring controls through testing to ensure secure log retention, archiving and backups, access control logs, and log integrity with cryptographic protections, digital signatures or hash values.

Evaluate change management controls by reviewing change requests, policy and procedures, testing and validation, formal approval, and rollback and backup plans, alongside annual policy reviews.

Evaluate the effectiveness of incident management controls for detecting, responding to, and mitigating security incidents by reviewing policy, evidence collection, eradication, recovery, and breach notification communications.

Assess vulnerability management controls across IT infrastructure by identifying, prioritizing, mitigating, and monitoring vulnerabilities, evaluating policy documents, malware protection, regular vulnerability scanning, remediation timelines, patching, configuration changes, and penetration testing.

Assess endpoint management controls across desktop, laptop, and mobile devices to verify policy enforcement, inventory accuracy, annual policy review, and monitoring for unauthorized services and non-sanctioned resources.

Assess infrastructure and virtualization security by evaluating controls across servers, hypervisors, storage, network devices, and virtual machines, including hardening, patching, access controls, antivirus, firewall rules, and encryption.

Evaluate HR controls testing to ensure compliant management of human capital and safeguarding employee data, covering background verification, policy reviews, acceptable technology use, asset definitions, policy communication, and security training.

Explore how to test and validate business continuity management controls across policy, risk assessment and business impact analysis, planning, and exercises to ensure resilience during disruptive events.

Evaluate how to obtain independent assurance of cloud controls by requesting a SoC report from the cloud service provider, recognizing shared responsibility and the impracticality of internal audits.

Explore how the soc report documents a service organization's internal controls—security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy—as auditors like Deloitte or PwC verify cloud providers such as AWS.

Explore SoC audit categories and types—SoC one, SoC two, and SoC three; learn how internal controls and trust services criteria cover security, availability, privacy, confidentiality, and process integrity.

Explore the four sections of a SoC report—the independent auditor's report, management assertions, and the description of systems and controls tests—with focus on scope, period, audit result, and complementary controls.

Review AWS SoC reports for the audit period, check for breach letter if gap exists, and evaluate auditor opinions; verify user entity controls and test design and operating effectiveness.

As we wrap up, explore recommended courses in IT audit, GRC, cybersecurity auditing, and Excel to strengthen internal audit skills, risk assessment, and compliance expertise.

Celebrate completing the cloud audit fundamentals course and download your Udemy certificate from your student dashboard, the instructor invites questions via email for further guidance.