Cross-sectional audit of secondary occupations with a focus on conflicts of interest
Additional transfer of knowledge takes often place through the secondary occupations of professors and other scientific employees. The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) examined whether the sufficient measures had been taken to prevent financial or reputational damage. In addition, the SFAO assessed whether the applicable rules allow for sufficient knowledge transfer. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) together employ almost 900 professors, about one third of whom have declared at least one secondary occupation. Secondary employment is much less common among other staff. Around 150 ongoing secondary occupations were recorded for the approximately 4,200 research institute employees.
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Audit of the procurement of ICT products with the potential to be standard products
ICT procurement system reviewed SFAO points out what is critical in ICT procurement. Requirements management is extremely important, as well as procurement strategies for relevant product groups. Legal rules should protect investments and support competition, but they can still be insufficient without appropriate reporting - if you want your system to adapt to changes.
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IT security in the Federal Administration
The SFAO has audited the Admin PKI – the basic infrastructure and offering for the issuing of digital certificates – within the Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication ... (FOITT). The examination concentrated on assessing the development and current operation as well as future prospects. Admin PKI refers to all processes and the hardware and software needed for issuing ... certificates of different grades. ... Technical and organizational deficiencies work together against data security ... Only minor deficiencies were revealed in the Windows environment but only in case of Microsoft products.Providers' lack of both assertiveness and synergy adds to 'the great unknown' of authonomous ... entities' networks.
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