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Audit experts 'focusing on social media'

Manama, March 23, 2013

Internal audit professionals are adjusting rapidly to new challenges in a changing business environment and prioritising social media, fraud risk and data analysis tools as key areas for improvement in the year ahead, according to the 2013 Internal Audit Capabilities and Needs Survey Report released by global consulting firm Protiviti.

The seventh annual edition of the study surveyed more than 1,000 internal audit professionals about their technical and audit process knowledge, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

A key focus of this year's report was on social media usage and related audit processes and policies, it stated.

Key findings show that 43 per cent of respondents have no social media policy within their organisations, and among companies with a social media policy, many fail to address basic issues.

In fact, information security and approved use of social media applications are areas that are not covered in nearly one in three organisations (30 per cent).

What may be the most striking result from the survey is that more than half (51per cent) of organisations do not address social media risk as part of their risk assessment process, with 45 per cent indicating that they have no plans to do so in the coming year's audit plan.

Additionally, of those that do address social media risk, 84pc rated their organisations' social media risk-assessment capability as 'not effective' or just 'moderately effective.'

"The survey findings are surprising in that they show how many businesses are either inadequately prepared or altogether inactive in putting effective processes and policies in place around social media," said Protiviti executive vice-president, global internal audit, Brian Christensen.

"From a risk management perspective, this poses significant potential problems for businesses that can range from reputational risk to IT infrastructure risk as a result of unchecked exposures to customer, vendor and company information," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
 




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