Policy Audit and Review Processes

Policies degrade over time. Agent capabilities change, threat landscapes evolve, and regulatory requirements update. A policy written six months ago may no longer reflect current risks. Regular audit and review processes ensure policies remain effective, relevant, and compliant.

Audit Frequency

Conduct policy audits on a regular schedule. Quarterly reviews work well for most organizations. High-risk deployments or rapidly changing environments may need monthly reviews. Trigger ad-hoc reviews after security incidents, compliance findings, or major agent capability changes.

What to Audit

Rule Coverage

Identify actions that agents perform but no rule covers. In a default-deny system, these actions are already blocked, but the absence of an explicit rule suggests a gap in policy documentation. In a default-allow system, uncovered actions represent potential vulnerabilities.

Rule Utilization

Identify rules that have not matched any action in the audit period. Dead rules add complexity without adding value. Determine whether the rule targets a retired capability (remove it) or a rare but important scenario (keep it but document why).

Decision Distribution

Analyze the ratio of allow to deny decisions. A policy that denies 50% of actions may be too restrictive, causing agent failures and user friction. A policy that allows 99.9% of actions may not be providing meaningful safety.

Override Frequency

Count emergency overrides in the audit period. Frequent overrides for the same action indicate that the policy is too restrictive for legitimate use. Update the policy to handle these cases normally.

Review Process

1. Generate audit reports from Authensor's control plane covering the review period
2. Identify findings using the criteria above
3. Draft policy modifications to address findings
4. Review modifications with security, compliance, and engineering stakeholders
5. Test modifications using shadow evaluation
6. Deploy through the gradual rollout process
7. Document the review outcome and any decisions made

Compliance Integration

Map policy rules to compliance requirements. During audit, verify that every compliance requirement has at least one corresponding policy rule. Authensor's receipt chain provides the evidence trail that compliance auditors need to verify enforcement.

Policies without review are assumptions. Policies with regular review are controls.