How to perform a security audit on your remote access solutions
Remote access keeps Australian organisations operating across offices, homes, client sites and regional locations. VPNs, virtual desktops, remote support platforms and cloud administration portals can improve productivity, but each connection creates a potential path into business systems.
A practical audit examines how people connect, what they can reach, how access is protected and whether suspicious activity will be detected quickly. The process should cover technology, identity, user behaviour, third-party arrangements and compliance obligations rather than treating the VPN as the entire security boundary.
Set the audit scope and business context
Start by creating an inventory of every remote access method. Include corporate VPNs, Microsoft 365 and other SaaS administration accounts, RDP services, VDI environments, remote desktop tools, privileged access systems and connections used by suppliers. Record the owner, purpose, user groups, authentication method, data accessed and internet exposure for each service.
The scope should reflect how the organisation operates. A healthcare provider in Melbourne may have clinicians connecting from home, while a mining business in Western Australia may support workers at remote sites with unreliable links. A Sydney financial services firm will face different availability and regulatory pressures from a regional council in Queensland. Infoziant Security’s cybersecurity services can help validate the audit scope through vulnerability assessment, penetration testing and infrastructure review.
Map each system to business impact. Identify which services support payroll, patient records, payment processing, production systems or public-facing platforms. This prioritisation ensures that high-risk access paths receive attention first and that testing does not interrupt critical operations during an Australian business day.
Verify identities and access permissions
Strong authentication is central to a remote access review. Check whether multi-factor authentication is enforced for all users, administrators, contractors and service accounts, and whether weaker methods such as SMS are still used where stronger authenticator apps, passkeys or hardware security keys are available. Test recovery processes as carefully as the normal login flow because attackers often target account resets.
Review the full identity lifecycle, from onboarding to role changes and offboarding. Access should be removed promptly when a worker leaves, a contractor’s engagement ends or a supplier no longer needs a connection. Privileged accounts should be separate from ordinary user accounts, with just-in-time elevation and approval for sensitive tasks where practical.
Access checks worth documenting
- Current users, groups, service accounts and external identities
- MFA coverage, authentication exceptions and emergency accounts
- Privileged roles, shared accounts and dormant credentials
- Joiner, mover and leaver workflows
- Session timeouts, device trust and reauthentication rules
Compare permissions with actual job requirements. If a remote help-desk account can reach domain controllers or production databases, investigate why and reduce the privilege. Access reviews should be repeated regularly rather than completed once for an audit report.
Examine devices, networks and configurations
Assess the security posture of devices allowed to connect remotely. Confirm that laptops and mobiles use supported operating systems, active endpoint protection, disk encryption, secure configuration baselines and automatic patching. Bring-your-own-device access needs clear controls, such as mobile application management, containerisation or a decision to block access to sensitive data.
Inspect VPN gateways, firewalls, remote desktop services and cloud access policies for exposed ports, outdated software, weak cipher settings and unnecessary administrative interfaces. Look for split tunnelling, which can allow a device to access the corporate network and an untrusted home or public network at the same time. Where business requirements permit, route sensitive traffic through inspected security controls.
Test segmentation and authorisation from the perspective of a compromised account. A standard employee should not be able to move freely from a remote access portal to server management networks. Penetration testing can safely assess whether misconfigurations, stolen credentials or vulnerable endpoints could lead to lateral movement, while avoiding disruption to live systems.
Assess logging, detection and incident response
An effective audit asks what the security team can see, not simply whether logs exist. Collect authentication successes and failures, MFA changes, new device registrations, privilege assignments, unusual geolocation, impossible travel, large downloads and administrative actions. Time synchronisation is important when teams in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane need to reconstruct an incident across different systems and working hours.
Send relevant events to a SIEM or managed monitoring service, with alerts tuned to the organisation’s normal activity. A login from a new country may need a different response from repeated failed logins against a dormant account. Review whether alerts are acknowledged outside standard office hours and whether a genuine escalation path exists for incidents occurring on a public holiday or late on a Friday arvo.
Monitoring signals to test
- Repeated login failures followed by a successful authentication
- MFA fatigue, unexpected approval prompts or factor changes
- New devices, locations or unusual access times
- Privilege escalation and changes to remote access policy
- Large transfers from sensitive systems
- Disabled logging, endpoint protection or security agents
Incident playbooks should explain how to disable an account, revoke sessions, isolate a device, block a VPN connection and preserve evidence. Exercise these procedures with the IT team, service providers and business owners so response does not depend on one person knowing the process.
Align remediation with Australian obligations
Map findings to the organisation’s risk framework and relevant Australian requirements. The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight provides useful controls for patching, MFA, application control, restricted administrative privileges and regular backups. Organisations regulated by APRA should consider how remote access supports CPS 234 expectations for information security capability and control effectiveness.
The Privacy Act and Notifiable Data Breaches scheme are also relevant when compromised remote access could expose personal information. Health services must consider the sensitivity of medical records, while government suppliers may have contractual security requirements beyond their baseline controls. Document the reasoning behind risk acceptance, especially for legacy systems that cannot be replaced immediately.
Give every finding an owner, deadline, severity and verification method. Typical remediation may include removing internet-facing RDP, enforcing phishing-resistant MFA, tightening conditional access, patching a VPN appliance or redesigning network segmentation. After changes are made, retest the original weakness and retain evidence for management, auditors and customers.
A focused remote access review can reveal weaknesses before they become a data breach or operational outage. Engage remote security specialists to assess exposed services, identities, devices and monitoring, then request a practical report that prioritises the fixes your organisation can implement first.
