Many companies are becoming concerned about cyber-security due to the continuous inventions in technology.
Companies in the modern era are confronted with a critical issue called advanced persistent threats (APTs), which present a substantial danger to their information security. Hackers are progressively focusing on companies, organizations, and government agencies. In order to handle and decrease cyber risk, companies are implementing best practices. Moreover, the insurance market offers coverage to mitigate the consequences of breaches (Anderson & Rainie, 2010).
The Importance of Separation of Duties
It is essential for organizations to establish policies that counteract the possibility of insiders participating in APTs.
Separation of duties is a crucial concept in internal controls, but it can be challenging and expensive to implement. Its goal is to assign tasks and associated privileges to multiple individuals for a specific security process. In the IT orga
...nization, separation of duties is fundamental and mandated by firms for regulatory reasons (Backhouse & Dhillon, 2000). Therefore, IT organizations should prioritize separation of duties across all their functions, particularly in security.
Implementing separation of duties achieves two primary goals in terms of security. Firstly, it helps prevent conflicts of interest, wrongful acts, errors, fraud, and abuse that may arise due to conflicts of interest (Backhouse & Dhillion, 2000). Secondly, it plays a crucial role in identifying control failures, such as information theft, security breaches, and the circumvention or manipulation of security controls. Organizations establish security controls to protect their information systems from attacks on integrity, confidentiality, and availability of IT systems, networks, and data. These measures are implemented after assessing the risks associated with a security system. By implementing these security controls, the influence and authority held by
any individual are limited (Guttman & Swanson, 1996).
The purpose of proper separation of duties is to ensure that employees' responsibilities do not conflict and that they are accountable for reporting on themselves or their superior. To prevent advanced persistent threats, it is essential to have different individuals handling the design, implementation, testing, audits, monitoring, and reporting of security measures. It is also crucial to avoid direct reporting between the chief security officer and other roles involved in these tasks. By implementing this policy of separating duties, the likelihood of criminal behavior can be reduced as it would require collusion among multiple parties (Guttman ; Swanson, 1996).
Organizational structures should be constructed in a way that prevents any one individual from compromising security. In order to maintain the security controls, companies have several options available.
Keeping Employees
Rewards and recognition are widely acknowledged as crucial means of motivating and enhancing employee performance. While some rewards come with a cost, others are entirely non-monetary. These non-monetary rewards, such as formal or informal acknowledgment, are equally powerful (Allen ; helms, 20002).
Non-monetary rewards, such as opportunities for training, increased decision-making power, and more enjoyable job tasks, are crucial elements of job satisfaction that contribute to motivation and employee retention. It is difficult to fully satisfy people's financial desires, but offering these non-monetary incentives can effectively motivate employees. By building confidence and satisfaction among workers, non-monetary rewards play a significant role in fostering motivation (Keller, 1999).
According to Jimenez (1999), evidence indicates that recognition and rewards play a crucial role in retaining high-performing employees within a company. To achieve the desired outcomes, reward systems should be closely aligned with organizational strategies, as mentioned by
Allen and Helms (2002). It has been found that employees value recognition when it originates from their superiors. Additionally, timely praise from managers and supervisors serves as a strong motivator for workers. As Allen and Helms (2002) point out, managers and leaders should regularly demonstrate appreciation to encourage employees in reaching strategic goals. By doing so, employees are likely to repeat this kind of performance behavior if they feel valued.
Offering employees developmental opportunities, such as assigning them special duties, is a valuable type of non-financial acknowledgment. The act of selecting individuals to work on a task team in order to accomplish organizational objectives is inspiring because it allows them to gain new skills and experiences, as well as introduce diversity to their work (Jimenez, 1999). Moreover, such an opportunity reinforces their confidence by demonstrating trust in their capabilities. Managers and colleagues providing positive recognition effectively boost an individual's job performance to a higher capacity (Keller, 1999).
Personalizing non-monetary rewards is a creative way to enhance positive behavior and enhance employee performance and retention. These forms of recognition and rewarding may not come at a high cost, but they hold immeasurable value once they are received.
Auditing
Auditing is a process and mechanism utilized by organizations to ensure that budgeting aligns with the program of operations. These connections help minimize the risk of making decisions based on faulty information and mishandling resources. Internal audits play a crucial role in guiding the implementation of budgets and policies within an organization.
They are directed towards the economical, effective and efficient accomplishment of the entity’s initiatives (Torok & Patrick, 1997). Internal audits ensure that an organization complies with laws, regulations, and management policies.
They play a crucial role in protecting assets and information and are instrumental in detecting fraud and errors. This process enables management to evaluate the accuracy of their accounting records and the reliability of financial and management information (Craig & Philippe, 1993). The wide range of mechanisms strengthens the proper implementation of budgets and policy decisions, ensures the appropriate use of resources, reduces the risk of fraud, waste, and mismanagement, and guarantees timely and reliable access to information for decision-making (Torok & Patrick, 1997). Audits are vital for effective organizational management and help address issues such as inadequate worker training and supervision, lack of separation of duties, and incomplete or nonexistent record-keeping.
For a complete auditing strategy, it should be timely, well defined and effective in tracking the effectiveness of an entity’s defenses and identify any attempts to circumvent them (Craig ; Philippe, 1993). The audit strategy should also track data on an organization’s important resources, activities, and potential risks. It should provide proof that IT operations are compliant with regulatory and corporate requirements. With the increasing use of computer systems within organizations, audit standards need to be improved to reflect this integration. Computer systems are used for collecting, evaluating, reviewing, and storing data (Sayle, 1997).
Organizations are including computer systems to safeguard data and intellectual property, as well as to enable administrators to track and identify permissions used in accessing a specific security event. Establishing comprehensive audit standards is a challenging task, but industry-specific audit standards have facilitated easier auditing and significant progress in the field (Sayle, 1997).
Specific standards for different sectors are essential because certain industries work with specialized materials and undergo intricate processes to
produce goods. Generic specifications found in comprehensive audit standards are only applicable in developing a quality management system that can effectively cater to niche markets, like edible products and pharmaceuticals.
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