Network Auditing

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What Does Network Auditing Mean?

Network auditing is the collective measures done to analyze, study and gather data about a network with the purpose of ascertaining its health in accordance with the network/organization requirements.

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Network auditing primarily provides insight into how effective network control and practices are, i.e. its compliance to internal and external network policies and regulations.

Techopedia Explains Network Auditing

Network auditing works through a systematic process where a computer network is analyzed for:

  • Security
  • Implementation of control
  • Availability
  • Management
  • Performance

The data is gathered, vulnerabilities and threats are identified, and a formal audit report is sent to network administrators.

It is generally done by an information system auditor, network analyst/auditor or any other individual with a network management and/or security background. It uses both manual and automated techniques to gather data and review network posture. It reviews:

  • Each node of a network
  • Network control and security processes
  • Network monitoring processes
  • Other data

Although a network audit may focus more on network control and security, it also reviews processes and measures that ensure network availability, performance and quality of service.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.