Explanation:
Not reporting an intrusion is equivalent to an IS auditor hiding a malicious intrusion, which would be a professional mistake. Although notification to the police may be required and the lack of a periodic examination of access rights might be a concern, they do not represent as big a concern as the failure to report the attack. Reporting to the public is not a requirement and is dependent on the organization’s desire, or lack thereof, to make the intrusion known.

Explanation:
It is important for an IS auditor to identify and evaluate the existing controls and security once the potential threats and possible impacts are identified. Upon completion of an audit an IS auditor should describe and discuss with management the threats and potential impacts on the assets.

Explanation:
One of the main objectives of an audit is to identify potential risks; therefore, the most proactive approach would be to identify and evaluate the existing security practices being followed by the organization. IS auditors should not prepare documentation, as doing so could jeopardize their independence. Terminating the audit may prevent achieving one of the basic audit objectives, i.e., identification of potential risks. Since there are no documented procedures, there is no basis against which to test compliance.

Explanation:
Generalized audit software features include mathematical computations, stratification, statistical analysis, sequence checking, duplicate checking and recomputations. An IS auditor, using generalized audit software, could design appropriate tests to recompute the payroll, thereby determining if there were overpayments and to whom they were made. Test data would test for the existence of controls that might prevent overpayments, but it would not detect specific, previous miscalculations. Neither an integrated test facility nor an embedded audit module would detect errors for a previous period.

Explanation:
Matching control totals of the imported data with control totals of the original data is the next logical step, as this confirms the completeness of the imported datA. It is not possible to confirm completeness by sorting the imported data, because the original data may not be in sorted order. Further, sorting does not provide control totals for verifying completeness. Reviewing a printout of 100 records of original data with 100 records of imported data is a process of physical verification and confirms the accuracy of only these records. Filtering data for different categories and matching them to original data would still require that control totals be developed to confirm the completeness of the data.

Explanation:
The primary objective of forensic software is to preserve electronic evidence to meet the rules of evidence. Choice B, time and cost savings, and choice C, efficiency and effectiveness, are legitimate concerns that differentiate good from poor forensic software packages. Choice D, the ability to search for intellectual property rights violations, is an example of a use of forensic software.

Explanation:
Exploitation of a known user ID and password requires minimal technical knowledge and exposes the network resources to exploitation. The technical barrier is low and the impact can be very high; therefore, the fact that many user IDs have identical passwords represents the greatest threat. External modems represent a security risk, but exploitation still depends on the use of a valid user account. While the impact of users installing software on their desktops can be high {for example, due to the installation of Trojans or key-logging programs), the likelihood is not high due to the level of technical knowledge required to successfully penetrate the network. Although network monitoring can be a useful detective control, it will only detect abuse of user accounts in special circumstances and is, therefore, not a first line of defense.

Explanation:
Trend/variance detection tools look for anomalies in user or system behavior, for example, determining whether the numbers for prenumbered documents are sequential or increasing. CASE tools are used to assist software development. Embedded (audit) data collection software is used for sampling and to provide production statistics. Heuristic scanning tools can be used to scan for viruses to indicate possible infected code.

Explanation:
Audit standards require that an IS auditor gather sufficient and appropriate audit evidence. The auditor has found a potential problem and now needs to determine if this is an isolated incident or a systematic control failure. At this stage it is too preliminary to issue an audit finding and seeking an explanation from management is advisable, but it would be better to gather additional evidence to properly evaluate the seriousness of the situation. A backup failure, which has not been established at this point, will be serious if it involves critical data. However, the issue is not the importance of the data on the server, where a problem has been detected, but whether a systematic control failure that impacts other servers exists.

Explanation:
Choice B describes a forensic audit. The evidence collected could then be used in judicial proceedings. Forensic audits are not limited to corporate fraud. Assessing the correctness of an organization’s financial statements is not the purpose of a forensic audit.
Drawing a conclusion to criminal activity would be part of a legal process and not the objective of a forensic audit.