A tech survey by accountants gives some interesting tips on security. The reason it is credible is because the authors aren't from our industry, so they can be expected to approach this without the normal baggage of some security product to sell. Of course their own is for sale, but that's easy to factor out in this case.
Security is still the Number One concern that accountants are seeing out there. That makes sense. It accords with everything we've seen about the phishing and identity theft explosions over the last couple of years.
Second is electronic document management. Why now? This issue has been around for yonks, and businesses have been basically doing the paperless office as and when they could. My guess is that things like Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II and various lesser well named regulatory attacks on governance have pushed this to the fore. Now, if you haven't got your documents under control (whatever that means) you have a big risk on your hands.
Third is Data Integration. This echoes what I've seen in finance circles of late; they have gone through a phase of automating everything with every system under the sun. Now, they're faced with tieing them all together. The companies selling product at the moment are those with tools to ease the tying of things together. But so far, the companies are not exactly enticed, with many companies dreading yet another cycle based on the current web services hype.
Spam has slipped to Fourth in the rankings of the "biggest concerns". The article tries to hint at this as a general easing of the problem, but I'd suggest caution: there are far too many ways in which this can be misinterpreted. For example, the huge increase in security concerns over the last year have probably and simply overshadowed spam to the extent that spam may well have doubled and we'd not have cared. Identity Theft is now on the agenda, and that puts the spam into context. One's a nuisance and the other's a theft. Internet security experts may be bemused, but users and accountants can tell the difference.
For the rest, read on...
Information Security Once Again Tops AICPA Tech List
Jan. 3, 2005 (SmartPros) For the third consecutive year, information
security is the country's number one technology concern, according to the
results of the 2005 Top Technologies survey of the American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants.
The survey, conducted annually since 1990, seeks to determine the 10 most
important technology issues for the coming year. There were more than 300
participants in the 2005 survey, a 30 percent increase over the previous
year.
Interestingly, spam technology -- an issue closely associated with
information security -- apparently has lost some currency. It made its debut
on the 2004 list at number two. On the new list, it falls to number four.
"Because our work and personal lives are now inextricably linked to
information systems, security will always be top of mind," said Roman
Kepczyk, CPA/CITP, Chair of the AICPA's Information Technology Executive
Committee. Commenting on spam technology's lower placement on the list, he
said, "We've seen major improvements to filtering systems, which have
allowed us to bring spam under greater control. This most likely is the
reason that spam technology doesn't command the importance it did in the
previous survey."
A different issue closely allied with information security -- electronic
data management, or the paperless office -- moved up to second place. It was
number three last year.
There are two debuts on the Top Technologies list: authentication
technologies and storage technologies. Another issue, learning and training
competency, reappears at number 10 after an absence of three years.
The following are the 2005 Top 10 Technologies:
1.. Information Security: The hardware, software, processes and procedures
in place to protect an organization's information systems from internal and
external threats.
2.. Electronic Document Management (paperless or less-paper office): The
process of capturing, indexing, storing, retrieving, searching and managing
documents electronically. Formats include PDF, digital and image store
database technologies.
3.. Data Integration: The ability to update one field and have it
automatically synchronize between multiple databases, such as the
automatic/seamless transfer of client information between all systems. In
this instance, only the data flows across systems from platform to platform
or application to application. Data integration also involves the
application-neutral exchange of information. For example, the increased use
of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) by companies worldwide
provides for the seamless exchange and aggregation of financial data to meet
the needs of different user groups using different applications to read,
present and analyze data.
4.. Spam Technology: The use of technology to reduce or eliminate unwanted
e-mail commonly known as Spam.
5.. Disaster Recovery: The development, monitoring and updating of the
process by which organizations plan for continuity of their business in the
event of a loss of business information resources through theft,
virus/malware infestation, weather damage, accidents or other malicious
destruction. Disaster recovery includes business continuation, contingency
planning and disk recovery technologies and processes.
6.. Collaboration and Messaging Applications: Applications that allow
users to communicate electronically, including e-mail, voicemail, universal
messaging, instant messaging, e-mailed voice messages and digital faxing.
Examples include a computer conference using the keyboard (a keyboard chat)
over the Internet between two or more people.
7.. Wireless Technologies: The transfer of voice or data from one machine
to another via the airwaves and without physical connectivity. Examples
include cellular, satellite, infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, 2-way paging,
CDMA, Wireless/WiMax and others.
8.. Authentication Technologies (new): The hardware, software, processes
and procedures to protect a person's privacy and identity from internal and
external threats, including digital identity, privacy and biometric
authentication.
9.. Storage Technologies (new): Storage area networks (SAN) include mass
storage, CD-recordable, DVD, data compression, near field recording,
electronic document storage and network attached storage (NAS), as well as
small personal storage devices like USB drives.
10.. Learning and Training Competency (End Users): The methodology and
curriculum by which personnel learn to understand and use technology. This
includes measuring competency, learning plans to increase the knowledge of
individuals, and hiring and retaining qualified personnel with career
opportunities that retain the stars.
Also, each year the AICPA Top Technologies Task Force prepares a "watch
list" of five emerging technologies [...]
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x46436.xml
Posted by iang at January 4, 2005 06:59 AM | TrackBackSo spam has dropped from #2 to #4. Where do you predict it will be on the list next year? Up or down?
Posted by: Cypherpunk at January 6, 2005 12:48 PM