1. Which of the following should an IS auditor use to detect duplicate invoice records within an invoice master file?
A) Attribute sampling B) Generalized audit software (GAS) C) Test data D) Integrated test facility (ITF)
2. Which of the following would be the MOST effective audit technique for identifying segregation of duties violations in a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation?
A) Reviewing a report of security rights in the system B) Reviewing the complexities of authorization objects C) Building a program to identify conflicts in authorization D) Examining recent access rights violation cases
3. Which of the following would an IS auditor use to determine if unauthorized modifications were made to production programs?
A) System log analysis B) Compliance testing C) Forensic analysis D) Analytical review
4. During a change control audit of a production system, an IS auditor finds that the change management process is not formally documented and that some migration procedures failed. What should the IS auditor do next?
A) Recommend redesigning the change management process. B) Gain more assurance on the findings through root cause analysis. C) Recommend that program migration be stopped until the change process is documented. D) Document the finding and present it to management.
5. During the collection of forensic evidence, which of the following actions would MOST likely result in the destruction or corruption of evidence on a compromised system?
A) Dumping the memory content to a file B) Generating disk images of the compromised system C) Rebooting the system D) Removing the system from the network
1. Right Answer: B Explanation: Generalized audit software (GAS) would enable the auditor to review the entire invoice file to look for those items that meet the selection criteria. Attribute sampling would aid in identifying records meeting specific conditions, but would not compare one record to another to identify duplicates. To detect duplicate invoice records, the IS auditor should check all of the items that meet the criteria and not just a sample of the items. Test data are used to verify program processing, but will not identify duplicate records. An integrated test facility (ITF) allows the IS auditor to test transactions through the production system, but would not compare records to identify duplicates.
2. Right Answer: C Explanation: Since the objective is to identify violations in segregation of duties, it is necessary to define the logic that will identify conflicts in authorization. A program could be developed to identify these conflicts. A report of security rights in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system would be voluminous and time consuming to review; therefore, this technique is not as effective as building a program. As complexities increase, it becomes more difficult to verify the effectiveness of the systems and complexity is not, in itself, a link to segregation of duties. It is good practice to review recent access rights violation cases; however, it may require a significant amount of time to truly identify which violations actually resulted from an inappropriate segregation of duties.
3. Right Answer: B Explanation: Determining that only authorized modifications are made to production programs would require the change management process be reviewed to evaluate the existence of a trail of documentary evidence. Compliance testing would help to verify that the change management process has been applied consistently. It is unlikely that the system log analysis would provide information about the modification of programs. Forensic analysis is a specialized technique for criminal investigation. An analytical review assesses the general control environment of an organization.
4. Right Answer: B Explanation: A change management process is critical to IT production systems. Before recommending that the organization take any other action (e.g., stopping migrations, redesigning the change management process), the IS auditor should gain assurance that the incidents reported are related to deficiencies in the change management process and not caused by some process other than change management.
5. Right Answer: C Explanation: Rebooting the system may result in a change in the system state and the loss of files and important evidence stored in memory. The other choices are appropriate actions for preserving evidence.
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