User:Vsakowska/Information technology audit

Purpose
An IT audit is different from a financial statement audit. While a financial audit's purpose is to evaluate whether the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, an entity's financial position, results of operations, and cash flows in conformity to standard accounting practices, the purposes of an IT audit is to evaluate the system's internal control design and effectiveness. This includes, but is not limited to, efficiency and security protocols, development processes, and IT governance or oversight. Installing controls are necessary but not sufficient to provide adequate security. People responsible for security must consider if the controls are installed as intended, if they are effective, or if any breach in security has occurred and if so, what actions can be done to prevent future breaches. These inquiries must be answered by independent and unbiased observers. These observers are performing the task of information systems auditing. In an Information Systems (IS) environment, an audit is an examination of information systems, their inputs, outputs, and processing. As technology continues to advance and become more prevalent in our lives and in businesses, along comes an increase of IT threats and disruptions. These impact every industry and come in different forms such as data breaches, external threats, and operational issues. These risks and need for high levels of assurance increase the need for IT audits to check businesses IT system performances and to lower the probability and impact of technology threats and disruptions.

As technology continues to advance and become more prevalent in our lives and in businesses, along comes an increase of IT threats and disruptions. These impact every industry and come in different forms such as data breaches, external threats, and operational issues. These risks and need for high levels of assurance increase the need for IT audits to check businesses IT system performances and to lower the probability and impact of technology threats and disruptions.

The primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the systems that are in place to guard an organization's information. Specifically, information technology audits are used to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and to properly dispense information to authorized parties. The IT audit aims to evaluate the following:

Will the organization's computer systems be available for the business at all times when required? (known as availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (known as security and confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely? (measures the integrity) In this way, the audit hopes to assess the risk to the company's valuable asset (its information) and establish methods of minimizing those risks.

More specifically, organizations should look into three major requirements: confidentiality, integrity, and availability to label their needs for security and trust in their IT systems.


 * Confidentiality: The purpose is to keep private information restricted from unauthorized users.
 * Integrity: The purpose is to guarantee that information be changed in an authorized manner
 * Availability: The purpose is to ensure that only authorized users have access to specific information

These three requirements should be emphasized in every industry and every organization with an IT environment but each requirements and controls to support them will vary.

Effect of IT Audit on Companies and Financial Audits
Globalization in combination with the growth in information technology systems has caused companies to shift to an increasingly digitized working environment. Advantages provided by these systems include a reduction in working time, the ability to test large amounts of data, reduce audit risk, and provide more flexible and complete analytical information. With an increase in time, auditors are able to implement additional audit tests, leading to a great improvement in the audit process overall. The use of computer-assisted audit techniques (CAATs) have allowed companies to examine larger samples of data and more thorough reviews of all transactions, allowing the auditor to test and better understand any issues within the data.

The use of IT systems in audits has transformed the way auditors accomplish important audit functions such as the management of databases, risk assurance and controls, and even governance and compliance. In addition, IT audit systems improve the operational efficiency and aid in decision making that would otherwise be left to hand-held calculations. IT systems help to eliminate the human error in audits and while it does not fully solve the issue, IT systems have proven to be helpful in audits done by the Big 4 and small firms alike. These systems have greatly reduced the margin of error on audits and provide a better insight into the data being analyzed.

As a result of the increased use of IT systems in audits, authoritative bodies such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Information Systems Audit Control Association (ISACA) have established guidance on how to properly use IT systems to perform audits. Auditors must now adhere to the established guidelines when utilizing IT systems in audits.