Audit Mindset Basics

What You'll Learn

• Identify the difference between stated security policies and actual employee behavior during an audit review
• Evaluate access control documentation for completeness, accuracy, and compliance with organizational standards
• Recognize the most common audit findings that lead to non-compliance citations in real assessments
• Maintain proper evidence trails for security activities including access reviews and policy acknowledgments
• Prepare clear, factual responses to auditor questions without oversharing or creating new compliance risks

Training Steps

1. A Typical Thursday Afternoon

   It's Thursday afternoon at Meridian Analytics. You are Alice, an accounts payable specialist who handles vendor payments and invoice processing. You've been with the company for two years and take pride in your attention to detail.

2. An Urgent Request

   A new email arrives from your manager, David Chen, marked as urgent. The subject line reads 'Urgent: Vendor Payment - Need Today'. David is usually very organized, so an urgent last-minute request catches Alice's attention.

3. First Instinct

   Alice's first instinct is to help David immediately. He's her manager, the request seems reasonable, and she doesn't want to delay an important payment. But something feels slightly off. Before acting, she decides to think through the request more carefully.

4. The Audit Mindset

   An audit mindset means approaching requests with healthy skepticism. Alice asks herself three key questions: 1. Is this request unusual or unexpected? 2. Does it bypass normal procedures? 3. Is there pressure to act quickly without verification?

5. Analyzing the Red Flags

   Alice examines the email more carefully and identifies several warning signs.

6. The Verification Decision

   Even though the email appears to be from David, Alice decides to verify the request through a different channel. This is a core principle of the audit mindset: always verify unusual requests using a method separate from the original communication.

7. Calling to Verify

   Alice picks up her phone and calls David directly using the number saved in her contacts - not any number provided in the suspicious email.

8. Verification Pays Off

   David confirms he never sent that email. He's grateful Alice called to check before processing the payment. The email was a Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack - an attacker had either spoofed David's email address or gained access to his account briefly.

9. Reporting the Incident

   David asks Alice to report the attempted attack to IT Security through the company's incident reporting portal. Prompt reporting helps the security team investigate and protect others from similar attacks.

10. Filing the Report

    Alice fills out the incident report with details about the suspicious email, including the red flags she identified and the verification steps she took.