What are IT General Controls | Centraleyes

What are IT General Controls and why do we need them?

IT applications are a core part of almost everything in an enterprise company today. In every function, people are dependent and almost addicted to various solutions that help them do their job.

IT General Controls are a set of internal controls helping organizations properly implement sets of controls across their environment, in an effort to ensure proper risk management and risk mitigation.

The scope of what is included in an ITGC framework is often adopted from public standards, and implemented to properly meet the requirements of an ITGC audit.

The audit will measure the effectiveness of the general controls that were put in place. Monitoring these controls through internal ITGC audits, as well as 3rd party audits will ensure that the policies were properly implemented.

ITGC Control Frameworks often break down into objectives of principals, touching several different areas of the organization.

For example:
Information Security:
These are the people, processes and tools used to protect informational assets in an organization. It is critical to adopt a risk management framework to both measure and mitigate data breaches.

Physical and Environmental Security:
Data centers are susceptible to fires, earthquakes and many other disasters which could affect your data. Having a backup which is not susceptible to the same risks at the same time, is critical.

Backup and Recovery:
First, identify your assets and ensure they are backed-up regularly. Next, you need to have the right resources and tools in place to ensure that the backups are both protected, segregated from the source, and accessible in a time of need.

Incident Management:

Organizations are being attacked daily. It’s not a matter of if, but rather when you'll be breached. It is critical to ensure that solid incident response practices are in place.

So how do you get started with IT General Controls testing?

Picking your framework would be the first step. This will allow leadership and ITGC auditors to align around a set of rules that everyone agrees on!
Next, you will need to scope out what part of the framework you will be adopting.

Once scoped out, you can begin the risk assessment, where you will survey people, processes, and tools to measure the effectiveness of the controls in place.

After completing the assessment, you’ll be left with a list of gaps for which a prioritized and tiered remediation plan should be created.

IT General Controls is a critical part of running an organization. Establishing these practices early on, will help your organization grow in a safer and lower risk environment, allowing you to focus on your key business objectives.

As soon as a real-life incident affects your organization, a well implemented ITGC practice could be the difference between success and failure.

#ITGC #ITGeneralControls #riskmanagement