Download SharePoint Data w/o Rights

At a company I worked at recently, I ran across a Sharepoint site and wondered whether I could download data that I wasn’t supposed to see.

Now I understand the purpose of SharePoint and company intranets is to share data, but even then, some data should be restricted to a limited number of people.

So I decided to check (before doing things like this, you better know How to Stay Out of Jail).

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No Metrics, Little Analytics

If your department doesn’t track metrics on your analytics, you are probably not doing analytics or you are making little progress in analytics.

In either case, its obvious that analytics isn’t very important to your management.

Which is one of the points I made in my post, 10 Signs Mgmt Doesn’t Really Support Analytics.

So far, I have encountered very few audit departments that track meaningful metrics about their analytics.

Counting the number of projects that include analytics isn’t enough.

Top 10 Reasons Why Being an IT Auditor is So Hard

Before you choose a career as an IT auditor, consider my top 10 reasons why being an IT auditor is so hard.

Periodic Access Review Problems

One of my current clients is trying really hard to do periodic access reviews.

They know that mistakes are made in granting access, that users get access and eventually don’t need it anymore, but don’t tell anyone, and that some users leave the company without their manager’s knowledge (I never have understood how that happens, but it does; it has happened in every Fortune 500 company in which I’ve worked).

Evaluating Risk in the Dark

When you evaluate the risk of a vulnerability, do you do it in the dark?

Or do you take into account other factors that might affect the risk?

What if one of the factors is an existing audit issue that has not been remediated?

CISA vs. CIA Certification

If you’re an IT auditor (or want to be one) and don’t have any audit certifications, which certification should you get, the CISA or the CIA? If you want to get both, which one do you get first?

Full disclosure: I have the CISA, but not the CIA. Back when the CIA was 4 exams, I studied for all the CIA exams except the financial exam, but ended up not taking any of the exams. I also have the CISSP.

How Virtualization Changes Audits

If you haven’t determined how server virtualization changes your audit plans, you better get moving. I’m not just talking about a virtualization audit (more on that later), but the audits that you typically do every year or on a multi-year cycle.

For example, if every year you do an audit on all networks, servers, applications, and databases that host your key financial reporting or PHI systems, you’re looking at policies and procedures, configuration management, security (including patching), user access, logging, and so on. But do you first consider whether those assets run on virtualized servers?