General and Creation Control of the Information Systems of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
achieved considerable progress in the management of the information systems. The auditors reviewed and assessed all key elements of the process. ... The objective of the audit was to assess general and creation control of the information systems of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since the beginning of 2009, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ... Overview of problems - area by area ... SAI Lithuania looked into all critical elements of a Ministry's information system, starting from IT architecture, through information security to automation of data processing.
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Opportunities Exist for SEC to Improve Its Controls over Financial Systems and Data
of SEC’s key financial systems and information. To do this, GAO examined information security policies, plans, and procedures; tested controls over key financial applications; interviewed agency officials ... The SEC is responsible for enforcing securities laws, issuing rules and regulations that provide protection for investors, and helping to ensure that the securities markets are fair and honest ... . In carrying out its mission, the SEC relies on computerized information systems to collect, process, and store sensitive information, including financial data. Having effective information security controls ... IT security basics under scrutiny ... Financial audit by US GAO was accompanied by an IT examination focused on information security measures in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). GAO found that SEC’s systems could ... be compromised, because of risks jeopardizing the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive financial information.
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Results of the development of the state’s information systems
The National Audit Office has repeatedly audited the management and development of the state’s information technology (IT) area in the last ten years. The last audit was performed in 2005. After that ... , several measures have been implemented in the state to organise the development better and to guarantee that the systems are compatible. This audit gives an opinion of the results of development project ... management and the state’s coordination mechanism in this process. ... ... Success and failure depend on preparation ... management system of the Defence Forces. Key problems and discussion with auditees are presented. ... Conclusions of performance IT audit based on a sample of government projects: business portal, land register, e-police, fire safety monitoring system, childcare information system and the document
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Management of Police Information Resources
Police tasks of the necessary data are processed departmental registers, information systems, automated data processing systems and networks where information is stored, processed and transferred ... to the classified information. The police department has all of these information resources, so the audit focused on the activities and actions of the Department to ensure planning and organizing of the recourses ... , monitoring, evaluation and coordination and other aspects of registers and IS strategic management. The audited period was 2012-2014. For the analysis, there were used previous data and data of 2015 ... ... Fundamentals of IT organisation ... and well understood architecture of information. Well functioning IT management structures, which on the other hand may sound trivial, were proved here as the key to success. ... Review by SAI Lithuania makes readers aware that nowadays it is difficult to develop a larger IT system without whole conceptual infrastracture: planning composed into strategy of the organisation
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Performance Audit of the Georgian Government electronic Procurement system
State procurement is one of the key components of public financial management. Its share in state budget is approximately 25 percent. Effective management of state procurements is an important sphere ... of interest for the State Audit Office. Considering the fact that since 2010 major part of public procurements is being conducted electronically and there is no alternative tool, uninterrupted provision ... of a high-quality service has a particular importance. <br /> It is noteworthy that establishment of open, transparent and competitive environment for the procurement parties mitigates the risks of corruption ... ... Electronic procurement system - how effective are management and control mechanisms? ... SAI Georgia analyzed the electronic Government Procurement system. In their report they focus on compliance and security problems, which may harm the business goals and overall mission of the system.
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Management of Information Resources of the Ministry of the Interior
Many activities of the Ministry of the Interior require the use of information resources that are of great significance to the entire State, such as the state and departmental registers, and public ... information systems. Whereas the Ministry has failed to implement some of the public audit recommendations of 2007 and 2010,6 we analysed, whether there have been any positive changes in the field of IT ... management. Their impact is important not only because the Ministry manages 16 information resources, which ensure data availability to the population, efficient activity of the services, and operation ... ... Process maturity examination can help in IT audit ... also flaws in change management and security processes. But the finding, which gave them the key to the root cause of problems, was connected with maturity assessment of the auditee's IT processes. ... Main risk areas in case of this audit were strategic and organisational - Ministry’s weak ownership of IT resources, insufficient audit and internal control function. SAI Lithuania auditors found
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Management and protection of assets in the field of the information-communication technologies at the ME SR
The Supreme Audit office of the Slovak Republic (SAO SR) has conducted the audit at the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic (ME SR) for the audit period 2011 and 2012 to examine ... the compliance with the generally binding legal regulations and the general statues in the field of the information-communication technologies (ICT) and the information systems of the public administration (ISPA ... ) with emphasis on the use of the information technology (IT) services provided by the third parties. The vast amount of irregularities was found, especially many cases of failure to comply with the standards ... ... Started from contracting, ended in security ... The perceptive and filled with findings audit - conducted by the Slovak SAI - discovered the list of issues which started in careless contracting procedures, failure to update the development concept ... and ended in exposing the organization to high security risks.
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Copyright Office Needs to Develop Plans that Address Technical and Organizational Challenges
The mission of the Copyright Office, a service unit within the Library of Congress, is to promote creativity by administering and sustaining a national copyright system. As part of this mission ... , the Copyright Office registers about 500,000 creative works a year for copyright and records documentation related to copyright transfer and sale. In recent years, the Register of Copyrights has discussed ... the need for a modernized Copyright Office, to include upgrades to the current IT environment. ... No justified investments without IT strategy ... GAO shows in its report on the US Copyright Office, what is a role of IT strategy in organisaion. Effects can be found at the bottom and at the top: the lack of strategic plan can make it more ... difficult to solve practical problems, but it can also put the overall mission of the Office at risk.
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Information Technology Cost Estimation Agencies Need to Address Significant Weakness in Policies and Practices
To estimate reliable cost for the sucess of an IT program by providing the basis for the informed decision making and realistic budget information. To assess the extent to which selected departments ... and agencies have appropriately implement costestimating policies an procedures(four caracteristics of a reliable cost estimation: comprehensive, well-documented, accurate, credible). ... IT cost estimation ... Check out what may go wrong with the information technology cost estimation. Results of the US GAO audit can help to identify high risk areas: comprehensiveness of estimations, their documentation ... , lack of adequacy and inadequate implementation.
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Lessons learned from government ICT-projects
This audit has been performed on request of the Dutch parliament. Some newspapers mentioned government losses of four to five billion euro's on a yearly bases. These news items caused the parliament ... to request this audit. The audit has been performed in only 5 months time and consisted of the re-use of earlier performed audits. We have 'recycled' earlier findings about ICT-projects. ... 'Expensive' does not always mean 'High Quality', so... do not feed the spiral ... Excellent analysis of systemic errors commited when designing Government IT projects. The report aims at the essence of problems which are encountered far from information technologies - in: politics ... , business, psychology... Do not be mislead by date of report, it is evergreen for all who really want to know why IT projects fail.
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