AIS AT WORK
Consulting Work for CPAs
Businesses and government entities have always been concerned about disaster recovery
or continuity planning. However, the events of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina
made everyone even more aware of the necessity of preparing for disaster. Auditors
can help. Continuity planning is an internal control devised to ensure that operations,
including IT functions, can continue in the event of a natural or man-made disaster,
including terrorism and acts of nature. IT—especially Internet technologies—is vulnerable
to man-made attacks, such as viruses and worms. An online retailer, for example, can not
afford to compromise system availability. The absence of a continuity plan is a reportable
condition under Statement on Auditing Standards No. 60, Communication of Internal
Control Related Matters Noted in an Audit.
A CPA can help a business to draw up a business continuity plan. As noted in a recent
article in New Accountant, some Fortune 500 companies will pay $40,000 or more for
such a disaster recovery planning engagement.12 These plans include sections on backup
and recovery procedures for all IT, offsite locations for data storage, and information
about hot (fully equipped for immediate use) or cold (leased facilities that do not include
hardware and software) sites available for use should current physical facilities become
inaccessible or damaged. The plans also include contact information for the management
recovery team. Copies of the plan, of course, must be stored off-site themselves. Ideally,
each member of the management recovery team has at least one copy at their home or in
another easily-accessible location off-site.
A disaster recovery plan is of no use if it is not tested regularly. Such testing is vital
to learn where there may be weaknesses. As an example, during an early Internet worm
crisis, many managers found that they were actually storing information regarding who to
contact in a systems emergency on their own computers! Naturally, when the computers
went down, so did this vital information. Full-blown testing of a disaster recovery plan is
expensive and time consuming. Sometimes it is difficult for managers to understand the
importance of it because they can’t see a direct link to enhancing their income. The auditor
may need to make the case. Unfortunately, there are many, many examples available to use
for this purpose.