Audit Trail Launches Data Privacy Awareness Week to Bring You Industry Best Practices in Data Privacy and Protection
Posted on January 26th, 2009 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Audit Trail will launch a week long data privacy awareness campaign starting on Jan 28th, to celebrate International Data Privacy Day. We will be joining an array of corporations, government officials and academics across the US, Canada and twenty seven European countries in celebrating this event that promotes awareness and education in data privacy practices. Throughout the week, Audit Trail will feature thought leaders who will be sharing best practices for securing sensitive information and safeguarding your organization against theft.
With unemployment rates peaking at an all time high, the temptation for employees to steal company information is becoming a huge concern. According to a recent study conducted by Cyber-Ark Software, fifty six percent of workers surveyed admit to being worried about losing their jobs. “Alarmingly, in preparation, more than half have already downloaded competitive corporate data and plan to use the information as a negotiating tool to secure their next post,” the study says. With insider theft becoming the number one source of data leaks, companies need to implement proactive measures like continuous monitoring of user access controls, certifying access to sensitive transactions and process-level analytics to mitigate the loss of valuable company data.
Join the Data Privacy dialogue at Audit Trail and find out if your security strategies compare with industry standards from experts like:
Dr. Marilyn Prosch, Arizona State University: Dr. Prosch is the Associate Professor of Accountancy in Arizona State University’s School of Global Management and Leadership. Her teaching interests are in the areas of electronic commerce, accounting information systems, and financial accounting. As one of the members of the AICPA Privacy Task Force that created the Generally Accepted Privacy Principles, Dr. Prosch is keen on the latest trends in accounting that pertain to privacy. She is an eminent spokesperson on the use of technology to prevent data loss and has presented at leading IT security and Data Privacy summits. Dr. Prosch will be blogging about “Top business challenges in Data Privacy and how to overcome those challenges to prevent another Société Générale Employee Fraud.”
Doron Rotman, KPMG LLP: Mr. Rotman is the National Risk & Advisory privacy service leader, a member of KPMG’s National Privacy Leadership Council, and a member of KPMG’s international privacy team. Mr. Rotman has over 20 years of experience focusing on all aspects of information risk. He has led data privacy engagements in various industry sectors. He has comprehensive knowledge of the global privacy initiatives that impact business processes. Mr. Rotman represents the firm to the AICPA Privacy Task Force, the Task Force is composed of representatives from the accounting profession in the US and Canada, industry representatives, legal representatives, and academia. Mr. Rotman will share his thoughts on “How to Establish a Data Privacy Model that Minimizes Fraud and Increases Business Efficiency: Best Practices from Global 2000 Companies.”
Steve Elliott, Approva: Mr. Elliott is the CTO and Senior VP of Products at Approva and is responsible for designing and managing the development of Continuous Controls Monitoring product suites that help companies with automated user access monitoring and periodic access reviews. He has helped CFO and CIO organizations worldwide to implement effective controls around sensitive transactions that are targets of data breaches. Mr. Elliott has over 13 years experience in enterprise software development and has been in the forefront of building technologies in the areas of security management, Internet applications, ERP and identity provisioning solutions. Mr. Elliott will talk about “Emerging Technologies in Continuous Data Privacy Monitoring.”
Come join us on Audit Trail to raise your awareness on Data Privacy issues and post a question to our expert panel.
Tags: data privacy, international data privacy day, Marilyn Prosch, Doron Rotman, Steve Elliott, data breach, href="http://technorati.com/tag/data security" rel="tag">data security, Technorati Profile
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With Mary Shapiro’s Appointment as New SEC Chair Will XBRL and IFRS still be a Focus?
Posted on January 9th, 2009 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
While financial pundits are debating what consequences Mary Shapiro’s appointment as the new SEC chief will have on corporate America, Audit Trail sat down with two financial experts to get their take on what to expect once Shapiro takes charge. Will she be spending most of her time re-establishing the SEC’s lost credibility as the “investor’s advocate” stemming from the recent Bernie Madoff episode or should companies start acting fast on XBRL and IFRS transitions? Let’s see what our experts have to say.
Phil Livingston, a co-author of the Sarbanes Oxley act and Approva3 board member feels that Shapiro will focus her efforts on getting the securities firms back on track versus more corporate compliance issues. In his own words:
Mary Shapiro is an experienced regulator. Her unique skill set seems to be that she is familiar with both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC. There seems to be broad consensus that these two regulatory bodies will be combined in the early part of the Obama administration.
I think she will have to refocus the SEC on enforcement actions and put Chairman Cox’s XBRL and IFRS initiatives on the backburner for some period. Her experience with the Financial Industrial Regulatory Authority (FINRA) will allow her to focus the SEC’s efforts on the securities firms (Goldman and Morgan Stanley) and financial institutions as opposed to corporate compliance issues like financial reporting.
Another obvious action will be the implementation of “say on pay” rules that President-elect Obama appears to have promised the unions. This will give shareholders and pension plan a non-binding, advisory proxy vote on executive compensation each year.
On the other hand, Michael Cangemi, Approva advisory board member and the former CEO of Financial Executives International (FEI), a leading industry think tank for senior-level corporate financial executives, feels that the guard is not only changing at the SEC but this historic election has given President-elect Obama a mandate for macro change. Contrary to Livingston’s prediction, Cangemi feels that the SEC will continue to push companies towards XBRL and IFRS implementations under Shapiro’s leadership. He personally endorses moving to XBRL:
I believe it is a foundation technology that will eventually achieve implementation, but I caution the SEC that you cannot mandate a deadline for a technology project. Fast tracking the tags was essential and now the SEC must guide the pace of implementation to allow it to be efficient and effective, allowing time for the technology to be available at a reasonable cost. Once the XBRL tags are built in to ERP systems, the small cost will be well worth the benefits. I see this tagged data leading to better internal reporting and analysis and more automated continuous auditing.
As for IFRS – Cangemi believes that with the melding of capital markets worldwide and the need for one language of accounting, it will continue to be a major milestone for SEC. However, the pace of implementation should be measured for smaller public companies and private companies, who desperately need to be focused on their business.
A recent posting by Tom Quaadman on Shapiro’s appointment sums it up saying, “Yes the 1930’s may have required a pirate of Wall Street, but our times require something much different. Mary Shapiro’s resume points to the experience we need, let’s see if that that translates into the action required.”
Check back with us every Thursday for more expert comments and opinions on hot topics that affect the risk and compliance industry and send us any questions you would like to ask our industry experts.
Tags: Mary Shapiro, SEC, XBRL, IFRS, Phil Livingston, href="http://technorati.com/tag/Michael Cangemi" rel="tag">Michael Cangemi, href="http://technorati.com/tag/Obama" rel="tag">Obama, Technorati Profile
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How Much Do You Know About Your P-Card Payments?
Posted on December 8th, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Purchase cards or P-cards have become the new currency that more and more companies are using these days to make payments on a global scale. And why not? According to our friends at RPMG Research Corporation, the average administrative cost (sourcing, purchasing and payment activities) of a traditional Purchase Order (PO) process was reported to be about $89. For p-card transactions, the cost was reported around $19. Net savings: $70 per transaction. This translates into a transactional cost savings of more than $34 billion within North America on an annual basis. (Source: 2007 Purchasing Card Benchmark Survey Results by Richard Palmer and Mahendra Gupta, RPMG Research Corporation).
While it’s good to see that Corporate America is adopting cost saving measures like P-Card programs especially now, when we are officially in a recession, P-card expansion also leads to increased chances of fraud. Currently companies have no way to proactively monitor and flag exceptions like duplicate payments, unauthorized transactions, unusual vendors that ultimately result in the loss of millions of dollars in company revenue. Well, Approva does have a solution to that problem. The Approva P-Card Insight dramatically increases management’s confidence in expanding P-card usage by providing real-time visibility into the whole process. Approva can help you replace manual reconciliations with a more streamlined automated reconciliation process and alert managers on suspicious P-card activity instantaneously.
If you want to know more, join us for a free webcast on “Improve Your Visibility and Controls for P-Card Programs” by registering here.
Tags: P-Cards, Purchase Cards, Fraud, Controls Testing, Approva,
href=”http://technorati.com/tag/RPMG Research” rel=”tag”>RPMG Research,
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High-Vis Support for Bailout Controls
Posted on December 4th, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
We’re the first to admit that we can get a little giddy about controls, so today was practically an early holiday for us, as the Gray Lady featured quite a story on the push from GAO auditors to get the Treasury Department to develop and institute internal controls to ensure the bailout rescue package operates smoothly and transparently. Sounds like they’re not a moment too soon, as the ever-changing bailout plan isn’t getting rave reviews just yet. According to the head of the Congressional panel established to monitor the bailout, the government lacks “a coherent strategy” — despite already pouring billions into the effort. Yeah, sounds like some controls are probably a very good idea.
Tags: bailout, Congressional+oversight, Treasury, internal controls
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It’s beginnging to look a lot like IFRS-mas . . .
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
It’s been almost a whole week since we wrote about IFRS, so today we bring you a round-up of the very latest discussion, starting with news from Marketwatch about an upcoming summit on IFRS at which bigshots from organizations including Microsoft will gather to discuss implementation plans.
Meanwhile, Financial Week takes a kind-of-daunting look at how those who are most experienced with IFRS view it. Apparently, to know it is to doubt its cost and effectiveness. CFO riffs on the same theme, with a study that shows U.S. CEOs (who have not yet had first-hand experience with the IASB, who’ll determine international accounting standards) have more positive expectations about The Future of International Accounting than their European counterparts. Industry Week is hosting a web-based conference next Monday about what IFRS adoption will mean for the manufacturing sector, and even non-manufacturing folks might want to tune in to hear their take on how IFRS requirements will be affecting ERP systems.
That about does it for today, but you can visit AICPA’s IFRS blog if you need an up-to-the-minute IFRS news fix.
Tags: IFRS, IASB, GAAP, SEC, ERP systems
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Is Your Risk Management Strategy Working for You?
Posted on December 2nd, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Make 2009 the year of increased operational efficiency and reduced risk for your company. Take the 2009 Approva Controls Intelligence Survey to gauge if your company’s enterprise risk management strategy is on par with industry standards.
Click here to take the 5-min survey.
Vist us at www.approva.net/audittrail to get the survey results mid Dec. You could also subscribe to our RSS feed to receive the survey findings directly in your inbox.
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Are We There Yet?
Posted on December 1st, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
It looks as if our steadfast resistance to the R-Word has all been for naught, amid word today from the National Bureau of Economic Research that the U.S. has been in a recession since December of last year.
It’s official, at least. We’ll take that to mean that the whining about whether this thing’s over yet can start . . well, a little bit ago. Lest people think we’re impatient, we should add that the country’s last official recession lasted “only” 8 months. So a note to the economy that things can improve any day now, please.
Finally, some interesting reading today from CFO, which has a nice piece on just-named-to-President-Elect-Obama’s-Economic Team Paul Volcker, and his experience in and thoughts on auditing and accounting. Not to be missed . . .
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Thanksgiving Thoughts
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Remember how we just blogged about all the work going into preparations for the transition to IFRS? Well, we probably should’ve mentioned that while advice is plentiful and accounting programs are definitely gearing up, the prep isn’t as widespread as it probably could or should be. Financial Week is reporting on a recent PWC survey that found only a third of U.S. companies have begun preliminary planning for the switch. No time like the present, folks!
In cheerier news, it’s almost Thanksgiving, so in honor of turkey day, we bring you, courtesy of USA Today, Six Reasons to be Thankful in Tough Economic Times — with a special bonus Reason to Be Thankful from the LA Times — $800 billion more for the credit markets!
Have a wonderful holiday, everyone.
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Talking (Financial) Turkey
Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
How’d it get to be November already? Time flies when you live in interesting times, we guess. As America shops for groceries, contemplates turkey and hits the road, let’s not lose sight of other important preparations underway. Not holiday preparation this time — IFRS adoption prep, as accounting schools prepare for the change and Compliance Week offers advice for financial reporting executives. Not that all this prep is happening quietly, of course. FierceSarbox has the latest on who seems to be winning the debate (this week) on Fair Value, which the SEC is still debating.
In other news, President-Elect Obama showed off his economic team today, the Dow rallied big-time, and our friends at Protiviti have released a very-helpful primer on just what went wrong with the financial meltdown. We won’t call it cheery, but it’s informative for sure.
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Busy Bees at the SEC
Posted on November 19th, 2008 by Priya Ramesh »Permalink
Quite a week for the SEC. In between estimating IFRS adoption costs ($32 million! Wow. Check out the pushback), laying out a roadmap for the transition, and finding time in all the hubub to charge Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading, should we be surprised to hear that settlements between the SEC and companies are the lowest this year since the adoption of SOX? There are only so many hours in a day.
Speaking of IFRS, CFO raises some questions about that roadmap — and gives some advice for those who’ll be responsible for preparing IFRS-friendly financial statements. Compliance Week also gets in on the action, with some concerns about how IFRS statements will compare to those prepared under GAAP
