Driving Business Value through IT Audit

Technological advancement is fueling increased reliance on IT in key functions within organizations. Such reliance comes with evolving risks and it is critical to make sure that these risks are being managed.

IT audit can bring great value in this capacity by casting a wide lens over the IT systems, operations, controls, and processes. An effective IT audit can give confidence that an organization is realizing value from its IT investments.

Some key areas IT audit can drive business value include:

Business disruption, loss of operations, security breaches, loss of critical data, cyber-attacks, and regulatory fines are just some IT related risks organizations are exposed to.

It is important to get ahead of these risks.

Conducting a comprehensive IT risk assessment helps in gaining an understanding of the risk exposures.

An IT audit will review the IT risk assessment process, it will give assurance IT risks have been appropriately identified. The IT auditor will also test controls with an aim of identifying weaknesses and recommending suitable action plans.

Poor data management can expose an organization to reporting errors, fraudulent activities, loss of valuable information, breach of data laws, and financial losses.

It is therefore important to establish robust data governance and management frameworks which will be independently evaluated by the IT auditor.

An IT audit will review the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of data. In addition, it will analyze the data creation, transmission, storage, disposal, and security practices.

Cyber security risk has been identified by the World Economic Forum as one of the top five global risks.

An effective IT audit will determine an organizations’ vulnerability and threat exposure. IT audit reports are an important source of data on the state of information & cyber security risk management practices and the effectiveness of the controls put in place by management.

With increased reliance on IT systems, organizations must prepare, respond, and quickly recover from IT disruptions.

An IT audit will review the end to end IT disaster recovery and resilience program. It will assess the maturity of the program and its integration with business continuity.

The audit will test how quickly an organization can restore its IT infrastructure and continue with critical business operations during and following a disruption.

A lot of IT operations are reliant on third party service providers. This includes off-site backups, cloud computing, Points of Sale, internet service providers, etc.

Weak controls around third parties can cause financial, reputation, regulatory, and operational risks.

An IT audit will assist an organization to assess how third-party providers are addressing current and emerging risks. It will also review the due diligence process, contracting procedures, and monitoring provisions to ensure risks have been addressed.

IT audit is a useful exercise in the management of IT systems and infrastructure. It helps to improve the IT control environment and detect IT failures.

At CyberVerve, our trained IT audit experts will work with you to give you assurance on the effectiveness and performance of your IT control environment.

We do not just identify gaps but we also analyze the root causes and help you design the best control environment.

If you would like a free discussion on how best we can meet your IT audit needs, please call or drop us an email.