10. Structure of security audit report what should be included and why

Structure of a Security Audit Report

Title/Introduction

• Contents: The report should start with the title, date of the audit, details about the auditing entity (who conducted the audit), and information about the code owner or the organization whose system was audited.
• Purpose: Sets the stage for the report, providing essential information about the audit's context and the entities involved.

Executive Summary

• Contents: A concise summary of the audit's key findings, overall risk assessment, and high-level recommendations. It should be easily understandable to senior management and non-technical stakeholders.
• Purpose: To give readers a quick overview of the audit's most critical aspects, allowing them to understand the major points without delving into technical details.

List of Methodologies

• Contents: A detailed description of the methodologies and approaches used during the audit, including tools, techniques, and frameworks.
• Purpose: To inform the reader about how the audit was conducted, lending credibility and context to the findings.

Finding Classification

• Contents: A system for categorizing the findings, such as by risk level (e.g., critical, high, medium, low) or by type (e.g., security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, best practice deviations).
• Purpose: To help prioritize the findings and give readers a clear understanding of the severity and types of issues identified.

System Overview

• Contents: A comprehensive description of the system architecture, components, and functionalities.
• Purpose: To provide a baseline understanding of the system under audit, which is crucial for contextualizing the findings.

Trust Model

• Contents: An explanation of the trust assumptions, security boundaries, and the overall security model of the system.
• Purpose: To clarify what security guarantees the system is supposed to provide and under what conditions.

Deployment Information

• Contents: Details about where the system is deployed, including the environment, platform, and any relevant infrastructure specifics.
• Purpose: To give context on the system's operational environment, which can be critical for understanding the relevance and impact of certain findings.

Static Analysis

• Contents: Results and insights from the static analysis of the codebase, highlighting potential security issues like vulnerabilities and coding flaws.
• Purpose: To identify issues that can be detected without executing the program, providing an early layer of scrutiny.

Fuzzy Testing

• Contents: Outcomes of fuzzy testing (fuzz testing), which involves providing invalid, unexpected, or random data as inputs to the system to find security issues.
• Purpose: To uncover vulnerabilities that only surface during unusual or unexpected conditions.

Findings

• Contents: A detailed account of each finding from the audit, including its nature, severity, and potential impact.
• Purpose: To comprehensively present the specific issues uncovered during the audit, forming the core of the report.

Conclusion and Recommendations

• Contents: A summary of the overall security posture based on the audit findings and a set of prioritized recommendations for addressing identified issues.
• Purpose: To provide a final overview and actionable steps for remediation and improvement of the system's security.