As the nature and scope of information technology keeps on expanding so does its indispensability to organizations both in the public and private sectors. At its advent, IT played a supportive and subordinate role in some organization then expanded to play the same role as humans in the most organizations. Today, however, IT plays a crucial role in most organizations and in some organizations, they play primary role ( Steinbart et al., 2018 ) . For example, communication companies and banks cannot function at all without information technology. Most other organizations including airlines and other service providers can barely function without IT. It is on this basis that laws, rules, and regulations have been put in place to ensure that all organizations retain and maintain proper and effective IT systems. To ensure that these laws, rules, and regulations are adhered to, IT compliance audits are carried out on a regular basis. There are many other types of IT auditing including the one to establish if the IT systems conform to the strategic plan of the company, but this is not included in the scope of a compliance audit. With information technology playing such a crucial role in the running of modern organizations, a comprehensive IT compliance audit with a full scope is necessary to minimize inordinate inconveniences to organizations and the public at large.
The full scope of a compliance audit includes inter alia the adherence to all the principles of an IT audit. Timeliness is among the critical principles and entails the right compliance audit being carried out at the right time ( Steinbart et al., 2018 ) . Elaborateness is another important principle, more so when it comes to a compliance audit and entails ensuring that all areas that need to be audited and evaluated, are actually audited and evaluated, for an audit to be considered completed. The pecuniary perspective of an audit is also an important principle based on who has paid for the audit and whether or not they stand to benefit from it. The financial principle is crucial towards the validity and reliability of the compliance audit (Layton, 2016). Finally, the compliance audit of IT systems must be relational, meaning that it must be comparable to available literature and available technology by the peers of the organization. Issues such as safety, innovation, and effectiveness must be measured based both on available regulation and a comparison to how others are running such programs. This last principle is based on the fact that IT is a rapidly evolving industry (Layton, 2016).
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Over and above the principles above, a comprehensive IT compliance audit must have a variety of critical components. The first and most important component relates to the security of the system. Cybersecurity has risen as one of the most important areas of the IT industry. The importance of cybersecurity is augmented by the indispensability of IT and the high impact of data breaches for most organizations (Layton, 2016). The concept of data networking has transformed IT in that no organization is an island. The use of IT by organizations has become like the use of cars in traffic or planes in the air as how one organization operates can affect other organizations. Secondly, most modern organizations have information within their IT systems that belong to others, hence any breach will affect the owners and beneficiaries of those organizations. For example, a hospitals network will have the identities of its patients along with privileged information about the patients’ health. In most cases, the hospital will also have the financial information about the patients due to the payment of health-related bills. Conversely, organizations that use proprietary software can affect the owners of that software if they suffer a data breach (Layton, 2016). It is on this basis that stringent laws, rules, and regulations have been developed to ensure that every organization takes proper security measures.
IT compliance audit for security seeks to ensure that the laws, rules, and regulations pertaining to cybersecurity are rigorously adhered to. So important is cybersecurity IT compliance audit that in some quarters, the name IT compliance audit has become synonymous with cybersecurity audit. The audit includes components such as ensuring that the firewalls of a cyber-system are resilient enough to prevent any cyber-attacks (Hall, 2015). Whereas absolute resilience may not be attainable, auditors check to ensure that the right steps have been taken to maximize resilience. Auditors will also check to ensure that access to the systems is limited accordingly with every person who can access the system having proper limits based on the nature of the system. For example, in a banking system, a customer should be able to check the bank balance, but not change it. Conversely, in a company, every employee has an assigned level of access to the system, which is clearly defined and regulated. The final and critical component of the security audit is ensuring that if the system is breached, it has the capabilities of identifying and reporting the breach as fast and possible and where necessary, to track down the source of the breach (Hall, 2015). This last component of the audit ensures that the damage caused by a data breach is mitigated and the chances of a future occurrence eliminated or minimized.
The expanded use of IT to include pecuniary transactions have in recent years created the need to expand the scope of IT compliance audits to include monetary issues. Most major organizations operate under a specific registered and licensed domain name. The owner of a domain name should be responsible and liable for anything that happens under that particular domain name, more so when it relates to finances (Hall, 2015). With so many transactions to the tune of billions of dollars taking place online continuously, it is necessary to undertake regular IT compliance audits specifically with regard to pecuniary issues. Pecuniary audits ought to include an audit about money, an audit about monitory information, and finally and audit about monies sent being used for the purpose that it was set for. For a start, every organization that has a website where people are supposed to make any form of payment must be audited to ensure that when a payment is made, the money goes to that specific organization (Hall, 2015). This is critical as it avoids a scenario where third parties can be siphoning money through legitimate websites. Secondly, when monies are paid through such websites, it must be ensured that the value of that money, either in goods or services is enjoyed by whoever sent the money. Finally, many organizations use websites to collect money for charitable events, both for themselves and for others, a good example being the go fund me websites. An IT compliance audit should also include an evaluation to ensure that monies given through such sites play the roles that those contributing intended for (Hall, 2015).
With the IT compliance audit being stringent and comprehensive, it is important to evaluate how organizations should conduct themselves to be able to remain compliant. Compliance begins with understanding all the laws, rules, and regulations pertaining to running an IT system since the ignorance of a rule cannot be used as an excuse for breaching it (Peltier, 2016). Different organizations make different applications for their IT systems. For example, the laws that apply to organizations who use IT to run human resources only will vary from those applicable to banks and also for those applicable to hospitals. It is critical that they seek to understand all applicable laws, rules, and regulations for each application. The second means of remaining compliant is to invest in the right hardware and software for the operations that the organization is undertaking (Peltier, 2016). Investing in IT is a careful balancing act due to the costs involved but underinvesting will almost always result in an inability to comply. A proper investment must also include investing in cyber-security systems. Adherence to proper business ethics when it comes to pecuniary issues is also a necessity. Finally, it is also important to properly and regularly maintain the system. Proper maintenance includes hiring qualified staff to run the system and also keep on upgrading and updating it as and when necessary (Peltier, 2016). The totality of the above will lead to a properly functioning system that is compliant to IT laws, rules, and regulations.
The analysis above provides the full scope of a comprehensive IT compliance audit as necessary for every organization that makes use of IT systems. The best way to understand the necessity for a comprehensive and full scope IT compliance audit is to evaluate what would happen if the said audit was not carried out regularly and effectively. Humans are not only prone to take risks but also only do the bare minimum, more so when the activity being undertaken is expensive. The high necessity and indispensability of IT in the running of organizations has also made IT an extremely expensive industry. Purchasing IT hardware and software is extremely expensive so is maintaining and properly managing it. Hiring the right members of staff to run IT systems and networks is also expensive so is regularly updating and upgrading systems. Without proper compliance audits, organizations would limit themselves to only carrying out cheap maintenance, updates, and upgrades and only when it is very necessary. As a result, standards would be eroded, mediocrity would spread, and systems would break down when they are needed the most. It is on this basis that the right full scope compliance audit with all necessary prerequisites must be carried out regularly.
References
Hall, J. A. (2015). Information technology auditing . Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning
Layton, T. P. (2016). Information Security: Design, Implementation, Measurement, and Compliance . Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press
Peltier, T. R. (2016). Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: Guidelines for Effective Information Security Management . Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press
Steinbart, P. J., Raschke, R. L., Gal, G., & Dilla, W. N. (2018). The influence of a good relationship between the internal audit and information security functions on information security outcomes. Accounting, Organizations and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2018.04.005
