4.1.3. Auditor attitude and perceptions of audit's role
Both internal auditors and information systems security professionals mentioned that the internal
auditor's attitude and perception about the role or purpose of auditing were important:
“I believe the majority of IT Security staff sees us as collaborators, although that was not always the case.
In the past they probably considered IT Auditing as a nuisance, and based on the skill sets they
encountered that would be understandable. In the past, if Internal Audit found an issue the department
[being audited] might experience the recommendation as an unfunded mandate. Now, internal audit
takes stock of the issue and tries to collaborate system-wide to leverage existing resources. For example:
going to the President's office to get a threat and vulnerability scanning application purchased for all of
the campuses; or asking the President's office to develop a centralized scanning operation so that each
campus doesn't have to create redundant operations. — IT Auditor at Institution A
The information security manager at Institution A expressed a similar view about the collaborative
nature of the relationship between information security and internal audit:
Exceptionally strong to the point of we've just realized we have a codependent relationship. It's been
very positive.