Internal audit potential for

not-for-profit

organizations

Read this if you are a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Information Officer, or Controller.

While COVID-19 has forced many of us into a remote work environment, we also have to deal with the challenges that come along with it. The stark contrast between an office environment and one that potentially involves working in isolation can be a difficult adjustment. Office kitchen conversations have evolved into conversations with pets, our newest co-workers. A quick, in-person question has now turned into an email, phone, or video call. And job responsibilities expand as we try to not only juggle work but also ensure our children focus on school work―and don’t destroy the house. 

Not only has this forced environment caused social challenges, it has also opened the door for internal control challenges, as  internal controls designed to operate effectively in an office environment may not be ideal for a remote workplace. Even ones that are appropriately designed, may prove to be operating ineffectively in this new environment. Let’s take a look at some internal control challenges, and potential solutions, faced by working in a remote environment.

Establishing a remote control environment

Exercising appropriate tone at the top and establishing appropriate oversight can be challenging with a remote workforce. Ethics and governance policies play an important role in setting clear expectations about workplace behaviors. But, a workforce is much more apt to follow a leadership team’s example rather than a policy. All of those office conversations, even the conversations that are not work related, help set an expectation of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. These conversations often happen naturally in the office via a quick conversation in passing in the hallway or a late-Friday happy hour with your department. However, these interactions do not naturally occur in a remote workplace. Leadership and department heads should make an active effort to maintain communication with their workforce. Some things to consider:

• Send out weekly emails to the entire department and possibly more personal, one-on-one videoconferences or phone calls between your department heads or managers and individual members of their teams.
• These department-wide emails should stress the importance of communication as well as continuing to produce high quality work and maintaining accountability. 
• One-on-one meetings should be used to check in with employees to ensure their work needs are being met. 

Employees will most likely have many suggestions to improve their new work environment, including suggestions on how to improve communication amongst team members. 

The power of video

Videoconferencing also provides a great opportunity to stay connected. Virtual happy hours simulate an in-person happy hour. This is a great way to check-in with team members and show that, although people are out of sight, they are not out of mind. Town hall-type meetings can also be explored. Your leadership team can solicit open discussion. Agenda items may include office status updates, technological considerations, and an opportunity for employees to openly discuss current challenges due to working in a remote environment. Employees are going to have anxiety about the current environment. These meetings can help put employees at ease.

Risk assessment

Internal control environments are constantly evolving. Employees leave. Software is updated.  Offered services and products change. The list goes on. However, it is unprecedented that an internal control environment has changed so rapidly. Given these unprecedented times, there is potential for higher risk of fraud, internally and externally. Those responsible for designing internal controls (control owners) should reassess your company’s environment. Although internal controls can be designed in a manner in which they operate effectively regardless of the circumstances, it is possible there are unintended changes to processes that have occurred. 

For instance, let’s say the employee responsible for reviewing loan file maintenance changes is now working an alternative work schedule due to personal obligations. This employee does not have the ability to make loan file changes; therefore, segregation of duties has never been an issue. An employee within loan servicing has agreed to take some of the employee’s responsibilities and is now reviewing some of the loan file maintenance changes, which has put this employee in a position to review some of their own changes. 

Furthermore, some internal controls that require employees be at a physical location to operate may also be compromised, such as inventory cycle counts. If these controls are unable to operate, control owners will need to consider the impacts on the affected transaction areas, and if there are compensating controls that can be designed to alleviate some of the control risk.

Control activities

Accounts payable and check signing

The accounts payable and cash disbursement process will most likely be upended as a result of your new remote environment. Bills received through the mail will need to be scanned to the accounts payable clerk for entry into the accounting system. Some offices have designated certain personnel responsible for checking mail on an infrequent basis, for instance, weekly. Check signing may also prove to be a challenge as blank check stock may be inaccessible. Electronic receipt of invoices and signing of checks, as well as the use of wire and ACH transfers, lend themselves as feasible solutions. Email approvals may suffice when multiple signers are needed to approve high dollar disbursements.

Segregation of duties

As mentioned above, it is possible processes have inadvertently changed, exposing certain internal controls to ineffectiveness. Segregation of duties may become difficult as employees shift to alternative work schedules or have other issues. Maintaining segregation of duties should be a top priority for control owners and is something that should be constantly assessed as circumstances change. Challenging times may make segregation of duties difficult and may force you to get creative by requesting employees perform duties they are not otherwise accustomed to performing.

Digital sign-offs

You should also consider the manner in which you document the completion of controls. Control owners should be cautious about the integrity of an employee’s initials simply typed onto a digital document, as any employee can perform this task. Digital signatures, which require an employee to enter credentials prior to signing, enhance the integrity of a sign-off and are often time stamped. Digital signatures may also “lock down” the document, prohibiting any changes to the signed document.

Timely review

Given the circumstances, it is not unreasonable that preparation and review may take longer than under normal circumstances. Even if additional time is granted for the preparation and review of documents, you should consider the implications this has on the transaction class as a whole. The longer it takes to complete a control, the greater the consequences may be if you identify an error. For instance, the impact of an incorrect change to a loan rate index can be substantial if not identified timely. If identified quickly, you can avoid consequences later.

Information and communication

For many companies that have moved from a paper to a digital environment, sharing of information should not be an issue. However, for those that still operate in a mostly paper environment, performing tasks and sharing information with team members may prove to be difficult. And, those without the capability of scanning and sending documents from home could compromise a specific internal control altogether. Being forced to work remotely may be the perfect excuse to move paper processes into a digital format.

Monitoring

Monitoring your internal control environment is of the utmost importance given these significant changes. Frequent conversations should be had with control owners to ensure changes to processes do not render controls ineffective. Identified gaps in internal controls should be addressed proactively. Provide control owners with the opportunity to discuss changes to control processes with Internal Audit or Risk Management so such departments can consider the impact of changes on internal control. This also gives these departments the opportunity to cover any resulting gaps.

Permanent changes

Once the remote workplace requirements end, the effects of working in such an environment will not. There are many benefits and efficiencies to be found in working remotely. As people have now been forced to work in such an environment, they will be more apt to continue to do so. Therefore, let’s take this opportunity to revise processes and internal controls to be “remote workplace” compatible. This will provide a long-lasting impact to your organization far beyond the pandemic. 
 

Editor’s note: Read this if you are a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Information Officer, or Controller.

Last month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued its Semiannual Risk Perspective for Fall 2019. The report addresses key issues facing banks and focuses on those that pose threats to their safety and soundness. According to the report:

• Bank financial performance is strong due to a favorable credit environment and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.
• Capital levels have reached historical highs.
• Return on equity was above its 2006 pre-crisis level for the first time at 12.7%.
• Net income grew 8.22% from the same period a year ago; however, net interest income grew only 4%, as loan growth is below historical averages and an increasing number of banks are facing a flat or declining net interest margin.
• There is continued weakness in residential and commercial real estate loan growth.
• Delinquent and nonperforming loans remain below their long-term averages.

Banks can thrive even with economic uncertainty

While these trends indicate that 2019 was by and large an excellent year, banks cannot afford to be complacent, as 2019 also saw increasing risks to the industry. For instance, in 2019 there was much discussion of the future cessation of the London InterBank Offer Rate (LIBOR). The OCC has indicated it will increase its regulatory oversight regarding the anticipated cessation, to ensure banks assess their exposure to LIBOR and are appropriately planning their transition from the widely used benchmark rate. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is also working on a project to address accounting issues that could arise from the transition from LIBOR.

And, although 2019 continued the longest economic expansion in US history, economic uncertainty exists due to, in part, the US-China trade conflict and ongoing Brexit discussions. This economic uncertainty has caused volatility in the interest rate environment. Aside from the yield curve inverting in 2019, banks also saw the Federal Funds target rate increase 25 basis points prior to decreasing 50 basis points. Given the typically asset-sensitive nature of banks’ balance sheets, the current interest rate environment will also put pressure on net interest margins. The current volatility of interest rates has caused the OCC to conclude interest rate risk is currently at heightened levels. 

Net interest income continues to be the most significant driver of net revenues for community banks, comprising nearly 80% of net revenues. With a difficult interest rate environment and lackluster loan growth in residential and commercial real estate, banks may face a difficult path ahead. Banks should tread cautiously, especially if this uncertainty persists. Asset-liability management will need be a significant focus (more than usual) as banks try to position themselves to not only maintain profitability through this uncertainty, but also come out stronger than before. Specifically, if lower rates persist, asset growth will need be a priority over deposit growth to maintain profitability at lower net interest margins. If loan growth continues to wane, this will prove to be difficult.

Innovations to compete with new lending sources

Adding to the list of threats to performance is the increasing amount of alternative financial resources available to borrowers. Banks have traditionally been the only source of credit for borrowers. However, technology has rapidly changed that landscape. Person-to-person (P2P) lending (also known as crowd lending, or social lending), allows people to borrow funds directly from another person, cutting out traditional lending sources (banks). Additionally, blockchain technology, if the hype is accurate, has the potential to eliminate the need of a financial intermediary altogether. 

Banks are adapting to this competition and to customers looking for more convenience and alternative services by offering new, unique services that differentiate themselves from others and provide added value to the customer. Banks have delivered through remote deposit, ATMs, and interactive teller machines (ITMs). Banks will need to continue to adopt innovative services to remain competitive. 

For instance, banks could offer video conferencing services, in which customers could have a live conversation with a bank representative through their smartphone. This convenience would allow a customer to conduct a transaction, such as apply for a loan, from the convenience of their home, while still maintaining human interaction throughout the transaction. Such a service would help banks compete with digital channels offered by non-banks, such as Quicken Loans, which is now the largest mortgage originator in the United States.

Strategies to protect against technological risks

These services all require the use of existing and new technologies, which have caused banks to hold more personally identifiable information (PII) digitally across an increasing number of digital platforms. As noted by the OCC, this digital exposure has created persistent cybersecurity risks for banks. Adopting a robust cybersecurity framework is no longer an option. 

Banks should bring cybersecurity to the forefront of their strategic planning. Any strategic plan must consider cybersecurity implications, as a single disaster can be detrimental to a bank’s reputation. And, given this rapidly changing environment, the cybersecurity conversation must be ongoing through relevant bank committees and the board of directors.

Furthermore, these technological solutions require partnerships with businesses that banks would not traditionally partner with. Financial technology (fintech) companies don’t just pose as a competitor to traditional banks. Many fintech companies are offering their technological solutions to traditional banks. However, outsourcing technological solutions to fintech companies and other businesses does not relieve a bank from performing its own due diligence and ensuring those companies meet the bank’s standards. 

Banks should evaluate potential vendors to ensure they comply with the bank’s vendor management policy. Since environments are constantly changing, this evaluation should be ongoing. Many vendors now provide System and Organization Controls (SOC) reports which detail the control environment at the vendor and involve independent third-party testing of those controls that exist at the vendor. SOC reports can provide a useful starting point for evaluating a vendor’s ongoing compliance with the bank’s vendor management policy. However, it is not a substitute for ongoing communication with a vendor.

There is no doubt 2019 was a successful year for banks. But past performance is not a guarantee of future success. Banks face many challenges, risks, and uncertainties, of which only a few have been outlined above. The current landscape may be challenging but it is also filled with opportunity. Banks should consider expanding their services, adopting new technologies, and partnering with other companies to leverage their strengths. Doing so should help position themselves for an exciting decade ahead.

If you have specific concerns about challenges facing your institution, please contact the team. 

Read this if you are a police executive, city/county administrator, or elected government official, responsible for a law enforcement agency. 

“We need more cops!”  

Do your patrol officers complain about being short-staffed or too busy, or that they are constantly running from call to call? Does your agency struggle with backed-up calls for service (CFS) or lengthy response times? Do patrol staff regularly find themselves responding to another patrol area to handle a CFS because the assigned officer is busy on another call? Are patrol officers denied leave time or training opportunities because of staffing issues? Does the agency routinely use overtime to cover predictable shift vacancies for vacations, holidays, or training? 

If one or more of these concerns sound familiar, you may need additional patrol resources, as staffing levels are often a key factor in personnel deployment challenges. Flaws in the patrol schedule design may also be responsible, as they commonly contribute to reduced efficiency and optimal performance, and design issues may be partially responsible for some of these challenges, regardless of authorized staffing levels.
 
With community expectations at an all-time high, and resource allocations remaining relatively flat, many agencies have growing concerns about managing increasing service volumes while controlling quality and building/maintaining public trust and confidence. Amid these concerns, agencies struggle with designing work schedules that efficiently and optimally deploy available patrol resources, as patrol staff become increasingly frustrated at what they consider a lack of staff.

The path to resolving inefficiencies in your patrol work schedule and optimizing the effective deployment of patrol personnel requires thoughtful consideration of several overarching goals:

• Reducing or eliminating predictable overtime
• Eliminating peaks and valleys in staffing due to scheduled leave
• Ensuring appropriate staffing levels in all patrol zones or beats
• Providing sufficient staff to manage multiple and priority CFS in patrol zones or beats
• Satisfying both operational and staff needs, including helping to ensure a proper work/life balance and equitable workloads for patrol staff

Scheduling alternatives

One common design issue that presents an ongoing challenge for agencies is the continued use of traditional, balanced work schedules, which spread officer work hours equally over the year. Balanced schedules rely on over-scheduling and overtime to manage personnel allocation and leave needs and, by design, are very rigid. Balanced work schedules have been used for a very long time, not because they’re most efficient, but because they’re common, familiar, and easily understood―and because patrol staff are comfortable with them (and typically reluctant to change). However, short schedules offer a proven alternative to balanced patrol work schedules, and when presented with the benefits of an alternative work schedule design (e.g., increased access to back-up, ease of receiving time off or training, consistency in staffing, less mandatory overtime), many patrol staff are eager to change.

Short schedules

Short schedules involve a more contemporary design that includes a flexible approach that focuses on a more adaptive process of allocating personnel where and when they are needed. They are significantly more efficient than balanced schedules and, when functioning properly, they can dramatically improve personnel deployments, bring continuity to daily staffing, and reduce overtime, among other operational benefits. Given the current climate, most agencies are unlikely to receive substantial increases in personnel allocations. If that is true of your agency, it may be time to explore the benefits of alternative patrol work schedules.

A tool you can use

Finding scheduling strategies that work in this climate requires an intentional approach, customized to your agency’s characteristics (e.g., staffing levels, geographic factors, crime rates, zone/beat design, contract/labor rules). To help guide you through this process, BerryDunn has developed a free tool for evaluating patrol schedules. Click here to measure your patrol schedule against key design components and considerations.

If you are curious about alternative patrol work schedules, our dedicated justice and public Safety consultants are available to discuss your organization’s needs.

Read this if you are a City/County Administrator, Building Official, Community Development Director, Planning Director, Development Services Manager or work with customers providing a service for a fee.

Planning and development service fees are, for many municipalities, often discussed but rarely changed. There are a number of reasons you might need to consider or defend your fee structure―complaints from developers, rising costs of operation, and changes in code or process are just a few. 

But when is the right time for a formal review of your service fees? There are several key organizational factors that should prompt an in-depth study of your fees, either internally or with the assistance of an objective advisor. It may be time for an update if:

• You’re considering a new permitting system. New technology may streamline your workflows, simplify processes for your customers, or necessitate changes in your staffing. All of these secondary changes can impact the cost of your services. In addition, if you’re anticipating significant changes to your fee structure or methodology (e.g., moving to full cost recovery), you’ll want to configure your new system to support that going forward.
• You have an enterprise development fund. Development fees are collected to cover the cost of providing a service. The methodology you use to charge fees should be based on defensible formulas that can withstand the scrutiny of your customers and cover the cost to provide the service. In addition, reserve funds should be adequate to ensure your development service is funded through the completion of the project. 
• The regulations in your municipality are changing. Perhaps your organization is moving to a unified or form-based code or making changes to the International Building or Fire Codes. Changes in the process and requirements for development may require a reevaluated fee structure.
• It’s been a while. Even if your organization is not experiencing any significant or sweeping change, small shifts can accumulate over the years, resulting in significant fee adjustments that may be tough for you to implement and for your customers to understand. Periodically reviewing service demand and benchmarking your individual fees against those of neighboring communities can help to avoid sticker shock.

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you may want to consider a fee review, which may consist of benchmarking against similar jurisdictions. Not sure what level of review your organization needs? Our dedicated government consultants include former planners and community development leaders who have walked in your shoes and can talk through the considerations with you.
 

LIBOR is leaving—is your financial institution ready to make the most of it?

In July 2017, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority announced the phasing out of the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly known as LIBOR, by the end of 2021¹. With less than two years to go, US federal regulators are urging financial institutions to start assessing their LIBOR exposure and planning their transition. Here we offer some general impacts of the phasing out, some specific actions your institution can take to prepare, and, finally, background on how we got here (see Background at right).

How will the phase-out impact financial institutions?

The Federal Reserve estimates roughly $200 trillion in LIBOR-indexed notional value transactions in the cash and derivatives market². LIBOR is used to help price a variety of financial services products,  including $3.4 trillion in business loans and $1.3 trillion in consumer loans, as well as derivatives, swaps, and other credit instruments. Even excluding loans and financial instruments set to mature before 2021—estimated by the FDIC at 82% of the above $200 trillion—LIBOR exposure is still significant³.

A financial institution’s ability to lend money is largely dependent on the relative stability of its capital position, or lack thereof. For institutions with a significant amount of LIBOR-indexed assets and liabilities, that means less certainty in expected future cash flows and a less stable capital position, which could prompt institutions to deny loans they might otherwise have approved. A change in expected cash flows could also have several indirect consequences. Criticized assets, assessed for impairment based on their expected future cash flows, could require a specific reserve due to lower present value of expected future cash flows.

The importance of fallback language in loan agreements

Fallback language in loan agreements plays a pivotal role in financial institutions’ ability to manage their LIBOR-related financial results. Most loan agreements include language that provides guidance for determining an alternate reference rate to “fall back” on in the event the loan’s original reference rate is discontinued. However, if this language is non-existent, contains fallbacks that are no longer adequate, or lacks certain key provisions, it can create unexpected issues when it comes time for financial institutions to reprice their LIBOR loans. Here are some examples:

• Non-existent or inadequate fallbacks
  According to the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, a group of private-market participants convened by the Federal Reserve to help ensure a successful LIBOR transition, "Most contracts referencing LIBOR do not appear to have envisioned a permanent or indefinite cessation of LIBOR and have fallbacks that would not be economically appropriate"⁴.
  
  For instance, industry regulators have warned that without updated fallback language, the discontinuation of LIBOR could prompt some variable-rate loans to become fixed-rate², causing unanticipated changes in interest rate risk for financial institutions. In a declining rate environment, this may prove beneficial as loans at variable rates become fixed. But in a rising rate environment, the resulting shrink in net interest margins would have a direct and adverse impact on the bottom line.

• No spread adjustment
  Once LIBOR is discontinued, LIBOR-indexed loans will need to be repriced at a new reference rate, which could be well above or below LIBOR. If loan agreements don’t provide for an adjustment of the spread between LIBOR and the new rate, that could prompt unexpected changes in the financial position of both borrowers and lenders³. Take, for instance, a loan made at the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), generally considered the likely replacement for USD LIBOR. Since SOFR tends to be lower than three-month LIBOR, a loan agreement using it that does not allow for a spread adjustment would generate lower loan payments for the borrower, which means less interest income for the lender.
  
  Not allowing for a spread adjustment on reference rates lower than LIBOR could also cause a change in expected prepayments—say, for instance, if borrowers with fixed-rate loans decide to refinance at adjustable rates—which would impact post-CECL allowance calculations like the weighted-average remaining maturity (WARM) method, which uses estimated prepayments as an input.

What can your financial institution do to prepare?

The Federal Reserve and the SEC have urged financial institutions to immediately evaluate their LIBOR exposure and expedite their transition. Though the FDIC has expressed no intent to examine financial institutions for the status of LIBOR planning or critique loans based on use of LIBOR³, Federal Reserve supervisory teams have been including LIBOR transitions in their regular monitoring of large financial institutions⁵. The SEC has also encouraged companies to provide investors with robust disclosures regarding their LIBOR transition, which may include a notional value of LIBOR exposure².

Financial institutions should start by analyzing their LIBOR exposure beyond 2021. If you don’t expect significant exposure, further analysis may be unnecessary. However, if you do expect significant future LIBOR exposure, your institution should conduct stress testing using LIBOR as an isolated variable by running hypothetical transition scenarios and assessing the potential financial impact.

Closely examine and assess fallback language in loan agreements. For existing loan agreements, you may need to make amendments, which could require consent from counterparties². For new loan agreements maturing beyond 2021, lenders should consider selecting an alternate reference rate. New contract language for financial instruments and residential mortgages is currently being drafted by the International Securities Dealers Association and the Federal Housing Finance Authority, respectively³—both of which may prove helpful in updating loan agreements.

Lenders should also consider their underwriting policies. Loan underwriters will need to adjust the spread on new loans to accurately reflect the price of risk, because volatility and market tendencies of alternate loan reference rates may not mirror LIBOR’s. What’s more, SOFR lacks abundant historical data for use in analyzing volatility and market tendencies, making accurate loan pricing more difficult.

Conclusion: Start assessing your LIBOR risk soon

The cessation of LIBOR brings challenges and opportunities that will require in-depth analysis and making difficult decisions. Financial institutions and consumers should heed the advice of regulators and start assessing their LIBOR risk now. Those that do will not only be better prepared―but also better positioned―to capitalize on the opportunities it presents.

Need help assessing your LIBOR risk and preparing to transition? Contact BerryDunn’s financial services specialists.

¹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2017/07/27/acdd411c-72bc-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html?utm_term=.856137e72385
² Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Newsstand April 10, 2019
³ https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/examinations/supervisory/insights/siwin18/si-winter-2018.pdf
^{4 https://bankingjournal.aba.com/2019/04/libor-transition-panel-recommends-fallback-language-for-key-instruments/
5} https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-libor/fed-urges-u-s-financial-industry-to-accelerate-libor-transition-idUSKCN1RM25T

Who has the time or resources to keep tabs on everything that everyone in an organization does? No one. Therefore, you naturally need to trust (at least on a certain level) the actions and motives of various personnel. At the top of your “trust level” are privileged users—such as system and network administrators and developers—who keep vital systems, applications, and hardware up and running. Yet, according to the 2019 Centrify Privileged Access Management in the Modern Threatscape survey, 74% of data breaches occurred using privileged accounts. The survey also revealed that of the organizations responding:

• 52% do not use password vaulting—password vaulting can help privileged users keep track of long, complex passwords for multiple accounts in an encrypted storage vault.
• 65% still share the use of root and other privileged access—when the use of root accounts is required, users should invoke commands to inherent the privileges of the account (SUDO) without actually using the account. This ensures “who” used the account can be tracked.
• Only 21% have implemented multi-factor authentication—the obvious benefit of multi-factor authentication is to enhance the security of authenticating users, but also in many sectors it is becoming a compliance requirement.
• Only 47% have implemented complete auditing and monitoring—thorough auditing and monitoring is vital to securing privileged accounts.

So how does one even begin to trust privileged accounts in today’s environment? 

1. Start with an inventory

To best manage and monitor your privileged accounts, start by finding and cataloguing all assets (servers, applications, databases, network devices, etc.) within the organization. This will be beneficial in all areas of information security such as asset management, change control and software inventory tracking. Next, inventory all users of each asset and ensure that privileged user accounts:

• Require privileges granted be based on roles and responsibilities
• Require strong and complex passwords (exceeding those of normal users)
• Have passwords that expire often (30 days recommended)
• Implement multi-factor authentication
• Are not shared with others and are not used for normal activity (the user of the privileged account should have a separate account for non-privileged or non-administrative activities)

If the account is only required for a service or application, disable the account’s ability to login from the server console and from across the network

2. Monitor—then monitor some more

The next step is to monitor the use of the identified privileged accounts. Enable event logging on all systems and aggregate to a log monitoring system or a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system that alerts in real time when privileged accounts are active. Configure the system to alert you when privileged accounts access sensitive data or alter database structure. Report any changes to device configurations, file structure, code, and executable programs. If these changes do not correlate to an approved change request, treat them as incidents and investigate.  

Consider software that analyzes user behavior and identifies deviations from normal activity. Privileged accounts that are accessing data or systems not part of their normal routine could be the indication of malicious activity or a database attack from a compromised privileged account. 

3. Secure the event logs

Finally, ensure that none of your privileged accounts have access to the logs being used for monitoring, nor have the ability to alter or delete those logs. In addition to real time monitoring and alerting, the log management system should have the ability to produce reports for periodic review by information security staff. The reports should also be archived for forensic purposes in the event of a breach or compromise.

Gain further assistance (and peace of mind) 

BerryDunn understands how privileged accounts should be monitored and audited. We can help your organization assess your current event management process and make recommendations if improvements are needed. Contact our team.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is no longer the exclusive tool of well-funded government entities and defense contractors, let alone a plot device in science fiction film and literature. Instead, AI is becoming as ubiquitous as the personal computer. The opportunities of what AI can do for internal audit are almost as endless as the challenges this disruptive technology represents.

To understand how AI will influence internal audit, we must first understand what AI is.The concept of AI—a technology that can perceive the world directly and respond to what it perceives—is often attributed to Alan Turing, though the term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined much later in 1956 at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. Turing was a British scientist who developed the machine that cracked the Nazis’ Enigma code. Turing thought of AI as a machine that could convince a human that it also was human. Turing’s humble description of AI is as simple as it is elegant. Fast-forward some 60 years and AI is all around us and being applied in novel ways almost every day. Just consider autonomous self- driving vehicles, facial recognition systems that can spot a fugitive in a crowd, search engines that tailor our online experience, and even Pandora, which analyzes our tastes in music.

Today, in practice and in theory, there are four types of AI. Type I AI may be best represented by IBM’s Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer that made headlines in 1996 when it won a match against Russian chess champion Gary Kasparov. Type I AI is reactive. Deep Blue can beat a chess champion because it evaluates every piece on the chessboard, calculates all possible moves, then predicts the optimal move among all possibilities. Type I AI is really nothing more than a super calculator, processing data much faster than the human mind can. This is what gives Type I AI an advantage over humans.

Type II AI, which we find in autonomous cars, is also reactive. For example, it applies brakes when it predicts a collision; but, it has a low form of memory as well. Type II AI can briefly remember details, such as the speed of oncoming traffic or the distance between the car and a bicyclist. However, this memory is volatile. When the situation has passed, Type II AI deletes the data from its memory and moves on to the next challenge down the road.

Type II AI's simple form of memory management and the ability to “learn” from the world in which it resides is a significant advancement. The leap from Type II AI to Type III AI has yet to occur. Type III AI will not only incorporate the awareness of the world around it, but will also be able to predict the responses and motivations of other entities and objects, and understand that emotions and thoughts are the drivers of behavior. Taking the autonomous car analogy to the next step, Type III AI vehicles will interact with the driver. By conducting a simple assessment of the driver’s emotions, the AI will be able to suggest a soothing playlist to ease the driver's tensions during his or her commute, reducing the likelihood of aggressive driving. Lastly, Type IV AI–a milestone that will likely be reached at some point over the next 20 or 30 years—will be self-aware. Not only will Type IV AI soothe the driver, it will interact with the driver as if it were another human riding along for the drive; think of “HAL” in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So what does this all mean to internal auditors?
While it may be a bit premature to predict AI’s impact on the internal audit profession, AI is already being used to predict control failures in institutions with robust cybersecurity programs. When malicious code is detected and certain conditions are met, AI-enabled devices can either divert the malicious traffic away from sensitive data, or even shut off access completely until an incident response team has had time to investigate the nature of the attack and take appropriate actions. This may seem a rather rudimentary use of AI, but in large financial institutions or manufacturing facilities, minutes count—and equal dollars. Allowing AI to cut off access to a line of business that may cost the company money (and its reputation) is a significant leap of faith, and not for the faint of heart. Next generation AI-enabled devices will have even more capabilities, including behavioral analysis, to predict a user’s intentions before gaining access to data.

In the future, internal audit staff will no doubt train AI to seek conditions that require deeper analysis, or even predict when a control will fail. Yet AI will be able to facilitate the internal audit process in other ways. Consider AI’s role in data quality. Advances in inexpensive data storage (e.g., the cloud) have allowed the creation and aggregation of volumes of data subject to internal audit, making the testing of the data’s completeness, integrity, and reliability a challenging task considering the sheer volume of data. Future AI will be able to continuously monitor this data, alerting internal auditors not only of the status of data in both storage and motion, but also of potential fraud and disclosures.

The analysis won’t stop there.
AI will measure the performance of the data in meeting organizational objectives, and suggest where efficiencies can be gained by focusing technical and human resources to where the greatest risks to the organization exist in near real-time. This will allow internal auditors to develop a common operating picture of the day-to-day activities in their business environments, alerting internal audit when something doesn’t quite look right and requires further investigation.

As promising as AI is, the technology comes with some ethical considerations. Because AI is created by humans, it is not always vacant of human flaws. For instance, AI can become unpredictably biased. AI used in facial recognition systems has made racial judgments based on certain common facial characteristics. In addition, AI that gathers data from multiple sources that span a person’s financial status, credit status, education, and individual likes and dislikes could be used to profile certain groups for nefarious intentions. Moreover, AI has the potential to be weaponized in ways that we have yet to comprehend.

There is also the question of how internal auditors will be able to audit AI. Keeping AI safe from internal fraudsters and external adversaries is going to be paramount. AI’s ability to think and act faster than humans will challenge all of us to create novel ways of designing and testing controls to measure AI’s performance. This, in turn, will likely make partnerships with consultants that can fill knowledge gaps even more valuable. 

Challenges and pitfalls aside, AI will likely have a tremendous positive effect on the internal audit profession by simultaneously identifying risks and evaluating processes and control design. In fact, it is quite possible that the first adopters of AI in many organizations may not be the cybersecurity departments at all, but rather the internal auditor’s office. As a result, future internal auditors will become highly technical professionals and perhaps trailblazers in this new and amazing technology.