Conducting a security audit

Managing Risks: Safety and Security in Human Rights Work Module 3: Risk Management is not a One-off Activity Conducting a security audit

In this video, you will:

Explore the role of security audit and how it contributes to strengthening resilience
Understand your role in the audit process and how you contribute to its success
Understand the role of (external) auditors and how their expertise enhances security

Main takeaways:

Conducting a security audit helps organisations assess vulnerabilities based on their specific risks, ensuring a targeted and effective security approach.
The management of the organization should provide auditors with a list of identified main risks. If they cannot identify the main risks themselves, the auditors can help in creating a list as the audit cannot begin without one.
The management should ensure that the auditors have access to relevant information and stakeholders to provide an accurate evaluation of the organization's security status. Evaluation can be done through various means, such as interviews, technical assessments and policy reviews.
Auditors provide a clear risk status overview and may suggest new risk management strategies. Management is then responsible for deciding how to handle each risk.
Ideally, a risk-based audit should take place regularly, and be integrated into an ongoing risk management cycle.

Exercise

Tailor the risk management process to your context

As you reach the end of your journey diving into the risk management cycle, take a moment to reflect and continue building on your own situation by completing the remaining sections of the risk management process exercise:

Assess whether the implementation is effective and identify any areas for improvement (Step 4)
Develop a plan to ensure the cycle is regularly repeated (Step 5)

Feel free to revisit any section of the form and fill in any missing information. You can also use this form as a template whenever you find it useful for practicing the risk management process!

Before moving on to the quiz, we recommend you to review the main takeaways of this module, and to check the additional resources provided under the “Materials” tab above.