Cyber Security Audit UK
A cyber security audit is a structured assessment of your organisation's security controls, configurations, and exposure. Precursor delivers audits through CREST-accredited testing, configuration reviews, and gap analysis, with published pricing.
A cyber security audit reviews your security controls, configurations, and exposure against what a real attacker would find. We build every audit from services you can verify individually: CREST-accredited penetration testing, configuration reviews against CIS Benchmarks, and compliance gap analysis for Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001. No generic checklist product, a scope fixed after a free call and priced with clear, published rates.
What is a cyber
security audit?
A structured review of the controls, configurations, and exposure that determine how easy your organisation is to attack, checked against a recognised standard rather than a generic checklist.
A cyber security audit is a structured assessment of your organisation's security controls, configurations, and exposure. Precursor delivers audits through CREST-accredited testing, configuration reviews, and gap analysis, with published pricing.
Unlike a single product with one price tag, a cyber security audit is really a combination of disciplines, each checking a different layer of your environment:
Where an audit needs to prove exploitability, not just check for the presence of a control, we bring in CREST-accredited penetration testing. Where it needs to prove your build standards, we bring in a configuration review. Where it needs to prove compliance readiness, we bring in gap analysis against the framework you are being asked to evidence.
The five areas a cyber security audit reviews, whatever combination of services delivers it.
Access Controls
User access control is one of the five NCSC technical controls underpinning Cyber Essentials, covering account privilege, authentication, and MFA enforcement across your cloud services.
Network
Your internet-facing perimeter and internal network estate: firewalls, VPN gateways, servers, and (internally) Active Directory and network segmentation.
Patching
Security update management, another of the five NCSC controls. A common failure point we see is a patching window that misses the 14-day requirement.
Configurations
Servers, firewalls, cloud environments, and endpoints measured against recognised hardening benchmarks such as CIS Benchmarks and NIST SP 800-123.
Exposure
Your external footprint: exposed services, vulnerable software, DNS weaknesses, and credentials leaked in public data breaches.
Audit, assessment, or penetration test?
The three terms get used loosely across the industry. Here is how we draw the line.
Cyber Security Audit
A broad, structured review of your security controls, configurations, and exposure against a recognised benchmark. Usually the term used for a combined engagement covering more than one discipline.
Cyber Security Assessment
Often used to mean the same thing as an audit. Sometimes refers to a narrower, single-discipline review, such as a continuous attack surface assessment, or a risk assessment aligned to a specific standard.
Penetration Test
Manual, human-led testing where CREST-accredited testers actively exploit weaknesses to prove what an attacker could achieve, rather than just checking whether a control exists.
We do not sell a single audit product. We combine five.
Each of the services below is fixed-price and stands on its own. A cyber security audit is simply the right combination for what you need to evidence, scoped together on one call.
Penetration Testing
Manual, human-led testing across network, web application, API, and cloud, delivered by CREST-accredited testers. External network penetration testing starts from £2,500.
Configuration Reviews
Read-only, non-intrusive review of your servers, firewalls, cloud environments, and endpoints against CIS Benchmarks and NIST SP 800-123. From £2,500 per platform.
Cyber Essentials Gap Analysis
A pre-assessment review identifying where your controls fall short of the five NCSC technical controls before your formal Cyber Essentials assessment. From £500.
ISO 27001 Gap Analysis
Assessment against every clause (4-10) and all 93 Annex A controls in ISO 27001:2022, delivered as the first phase of an ISO 27001 consultancy engagement, from £8,000 for the full programme.
Attack Surface Review
EdgeProtect continuously discovers and monitors your external footprint: exposed services, vulnerable software, DNS weaknesses, and leaked credentials. A free trial scan is available.
Not sure which combination you need? Book a free scoping call and we will recommend the right mix based on what you are being asked to evidence, whether that is an insurer, an auditor, or a customer security questionnaire. Every component keeps its own published price.
What You Receive
Every audit component follows the same reporting standard, formatted for both technical remediation teams and non-technical stakeholders.
Who Needs a Cyber Security Audit?
Most engagements are triggered by one of these four situations.
Insurance renewals
UK cyber insurance underwriters increasingly ask for evidence of independent testing and secure configuration at renewal, not just a self-assessment questionnaire.
Board assurance
Boards and audit committees want independent evidence that security controls are tested and working, delivered as a summary they can act on, not a raw findings dump.
Post-incident review
After an incident, testing and a configuration review establish which controls failed and provide independent evidence that the same gap has been closed.
Supplier questionnaires
Enterprise customers and public sector procurement increasingly ask for evidence such as a CREST-accredited test report, Cyber Essentials certification, or an ISO 27001 gap analysis in supplier security questionnaires.
The best time to test your defences is now.
Join the high-growth companies relying on Precursor for continuous offensive and defensive security.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about this service, methodologies, and deliverables.
A cyber security audit is a structured assessment of an organisation's security controls, configurations, and exposure, checking areas such as access controls, network security, patch management, system configurations, and external exposure against a recognised standard or benchmark. Precursor Security delivers cyber security audits by combining CREST-accredited penetration testing, configuration reviews against CIS Benchmarks, and compliance gap analysis for frameworks such as Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001, scoped to what you need to evidence.
The terms are often used interchangeably, but they describe different depths of review. A cyber security audit or assessment is a broad review of your security controls, configurations, and exposure, checking whether the right safeguards exist and are correctly applied. A penetration test goes further: CREST-accredited testers manually attempt to exploit weaknesses to prove what an attacker could actually achieve, rather than just checking whether a control is present. Most cyber security audits combine both: a review of controls and configuration, plus manual testing where exploitability needs to be proven.
Precursor Security does not sell a single fixed-price 'audit' product, because the right scope depends on what you need to evidence. Instead, an audit is built from fixed-price components: penetration testing from £2,500, configuration reviews from £2,500 per platform, and Cyber Essentials gap analysis from £500. Each component is scoped and quoted during a single free scoping call, so you receive one combined, fixed-price plan rather than an open-ended day rate.
Most organisations review their security controls annually, or after a material change such as a new office, cloud migration, acquisition, or significant infrastructure change. Some individual components have their own cadence: PCI DSS requires internal and external network testing at least annually, firewall rule reviews at least every six months, and Cyber Essentials certification is renewed every 12 months.
There is no single UK law that mandates a 'cyber security audit' by that name for most organisations. However, the underlying evidence is increasingly required in practice: cyber insurance underwriters ask for it at renewal, UK Government contracts require Cyber Essentials certification, enterprise customers include it in supplier security questionnaires, and regulated sectors have their own specific requirements. If a client, insurer, or framework has asked for evidence of your security controls, that requirement is effectively mandatory for winning or keeping that business, even without a specific law naming it.