well Radhe, An IT audit should not be confused with a financial statement audit. While there may be some abstract similarities, a financial audit's primary purpose is to evaluate whether an organization is adhering to standard accounting practices. The primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the system's efficacy and security protocols, in particular, to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and properly dispense information to authorized parties. 1. The remit of the Department (for Internal Audit) or the contract (External Audit) in relation to other review and control functions (e.g. information security, risk management, legal)
2. Audit resources i.e. the number of IT auditors, other auditors and their managers, plus the breadth and depth of their experience in IT audit (e.g. in some departments, IT-skilled business auditors cover a lot of areas that would be left to IT auditors elsewhere)
3.Scope of the individual IT audit assignments
4.The audit plan for the period - usually documents the high-risk topics the auditors are likely to cover
5.State of relations with client functions. Whereas some departments refer to formal definitions, ‘audit friendly’ folk tend to be more chilled-out to the extent that auditors may even occasionally be called upon to perform conventional (internal) consultancy rôles.
Typically, however, the IT audit function covers the following areas:
6. Operational computer systems (servers, workstations), networks (LANs, WANs) and data
7.Computer systems under development and/or being tested or implemented
8. The IT Department whether central or distributed and their relationship with management, user departments, end-users, support/admin functions (e.g. Human Resources, Legal), customers, suppliers, partners, regulators etc.
Answered by
Romi
, an ibibo Master,
at
10:17 PM on May 28, 2008