2013-03-01
By ACL Insider
Today’s posting comes from Constantine Gart, a Product Marketing Associate with ACL, who is currently overseeing the upcoming launch of version 4 of ACL’s Analytics Exchange.
Leveraging continuous monitoring technology to improve day-to-day productivity is a practice no longer limited to just audit and compliance professionals—continuous monitoring is gaining serious traction in cyber security. A recent infoRisk Today article featured an interview with George Schu, a leading expert in implementing continuous monitoring technology in the field of cyber security.
Why should we be concerned with cyber security?
Schu discusses how implementing a successful continuous monitoring solution will aid an organization during the risk assessment process by monitoring potential threats and analyzing attacks that have already occurred. This is similar to audit and compliance professionals using continuous monitoring to perform recurring analysis to detect control breakdowns as they occur while using ad-hoc data analysis to identify control breakdowns that have already happened.
According to Schu, the real challenge in successfully implementing continuous monitoring goes beyond just adopting the technology—it requires a cultural shift within the organization to make this a normal process. A significant part of the change may come from organizational change and proper training. It is a good reminder to the audit and compliance community that continuous monitoring is not just a plug-and-play solution—it does require a more strategic approach to obtain its full benefit.
However, like anything that may be challenging to improve the status quo, the benefits of continuous monitoring far outweigh the costs. Ensure you provide constant visibility into key risk areas of your organization and act on them to remediate immediately. This will afford auditors and compliance officers more time and the flexibility to shift their focus from repeating remedial tests and to detecting other unidentified areas that may be exposed to risk.
Tell us, what are you reasons for implementing Continuous Monitoring?
Find out more: ACL Blog
