IIA Technology Updates

The IIA Technology Updates section features information about the latest technology guidance, conferences and IT seminars of interest to internal auditors, and other news from The Institute's Technology Practices Department.

Mark Your Calendars for the Next IT Audit Research Symposium

The third annual IT Audit Research Symposium will be held on July 6 in San Francisco, in conjunction with The IIA's International Conference. Sponsored by The IIA Research Foundation and Advanced Technology Committee, the purpose of the symposium is to create a portfolio of IT audit topics, while providing a means to communicate IT audit research needs and results to the profession.

Topics to be discussed during this year's symposium include:

  • Applying usability testing to evaluate IT controls for in-house developed software applications.
  • Fraud interviewing techniques for IT auditors.
  • The audit challenges created by the use of extensible business reporting language.

In addition, Kurt Milne from the IT Process Institute will present the research findings of his IT controls project, and California State University Professor Glen Gray will provide a status report of his research project on how internal auditors can improve the success rate of system development projects. These two research projects were selected from the first and second research symposiums.

Finally, this year's symposium features the use of a voting pad that will serve as an interactive survey tool to facilitate discussions and provide immediate feedback to presenters. Survey results also will be used to generate research ideas and technology guidance topics.

For more information about the upcoming symposium, please contact Director of Technology Practices Lily Bi at lily.bi@theiia.org.

New IT Audit Guides Coming Soon

In 2005, The IIA launched its Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG) series — a collection of publications written in straightforward business language that address timely IT issues. To continue providing relevant and useful guidance for internal auditors on technology topics, The IIA will publish two GTAGs in July. The new guides will discuss the business continuity management process and how to develop an IT audit plan.

  • Business Continuity Management. This GTAG focuses on how business continuity management can help business leaders manage the level of risk the organization could potentially encounter if a disruptive event occurs. The guide includes a section on disaster recovery planning for continuity of critical IT infrastructure and business application systems.
  • Developing the IT Audit Plan. Results from several IIA external quality assessment reviews reveal that developing an appropriate IT audit plan is one of the weakest links in internal audit activities. To this end, this GTAG will help chief audit executives and internal auditors understand how IT supports the organization, define and understand the IT environment, identify the role of risk assessments in determining the IT audit universe, and formalize the annual IT audit plan.

Both guides will be available free of charge on The IIA's Web site. For more information about the GTAG series, visit The IIA's Information Technology Web page.