Technological Risks

For this week's blog, I came across an article entitled "Technology: Risky Business", written by Riccardo A. Davis, in the March 2006 issue of Accounting Technology. This was an interesting article, which discussed how risk management is becoming a popular job for accounting firms across the nation. This includes disaster planning, information technology audits, and security management. Some of the reasons for the increase of concern and workload related to disaster planning are the recent hurricanes, including Katrina. Auditors of information technology have been on high demand recently due to these natural disasters and legislation such as SOX. Auditors are being called in to do risk management assessments for many businesses.

This article brings up some interesting points. With the advancements in technology and the recent natural disasters, there is a need for businesses to be assured that their information security is properly safeguarded. Even with technology positively affecting the accounting industry in so many ways, this is an example of one downfall. The more accessible the information through computer and information systems, the more likely that the information could be stolen. Its extremely important for companies to put all possible security measures in place to prevent this from happening. Auditors of information security are employed to help companies be aware of this.

As technology continues to advance, the accounting industry will reap benefits from information systems used in their areas of service. After reading this article, I have realized that these public accounting firms will also benefit by a larger workload in the area of risk management. Companies will continue to need assessments of risk in order to ensure that their information is properly stored and safeguarded from the public eye. This will continue to provide work for auditors of information technology.