Survey Spotlights Need for Data and Security Strategies: Organizations Must Know Where Their Critical Information Is Stored, Moved, and Processed

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * Managing and retaining emerged as the top technology priority of the U.S. and Canadian accounting professionals polled in the 2013 North America Top Technology Initiatives survey. This marked the first year the AICPA and CPA Canada jointly conducted the survey. * Securing the IT slipped to No. 2 on the priority rankings, but security issues remain top of mind. Most of the accountants surveyed doubt the ability of their employers and clients to protect mobile devices and outside of network firewalls and to detect and respond to a cyberattack. * number and sophistication of cyberattacks are increasing as criminals target the rapidly increasing amount of accessible via the internet and mobile devices. Organizations should view as an asset and implement management practices. * Data mining offers great potential for organizations, but only if they have the proper processes and policies in place. * U.S. CPAs are less confident than they were last year in the ability of their organizations to meet all the goals in their 2013 technology initiatives ********** On the surface, the results of the 2013 North America Top Technology Initiatives survey show that and retaining data nudged past the IT environment to become the top technology priority cited by the nearly 2,000 accounting professionals polled. Dig a little deeper, and the evidence indicates that the emphasis on stems at least in part from concerns about the increased security risks caused by the proliferation of mobile devices and the mass movement of confidential information to the cloud. Add to those factors the explosive growth in the amount of worldwide and the rapid rise in the number and sophistication of cyberthreats to the security of that data, and the result is a situation ripe for security breaches. no wonder then that the survey found increased concern with the prevention and response to computer fraud and decreased confidence among CPAs in the ability of their organizations to achieve success with their top tech initiatives. The challenge is to identify where resides and moves during the cycle, said Steven J. Ursillo Jr., CPA/CITE CGMA, principal and director of technology and assurance services for Sparrow, Johnson & Ursillo, a Rhode Island-based accounting firm that also provides technology and security audits and consulting. It's very challenging to govern all of that. This article looks at the results of the 2013 North America TTI survey and the implications for public accounting firms, businesses, and other organizations. THE SURVEY: U.S. vs. CANADA 2013 North America TTI survey was a joint effort of the AICPA and the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada). In the United States, the AICPA surveyed nearly 1,700 of its members from Feb. 12 through March 6. In Canada, CPA Canada surveyed more than 200 of its members from Feb. 14 through March 5 (for more, see the sidebar Survey Demographics.) Asked to prioritize the importance of their employers' and clients' 2013 technology initiatives, the U.S. CPAs and their Canadian counterparts responded with the same top two answers: managing and retaining data; and securing the IT (see Exhibit 1). There were some notable differences between the U.S. and Canadian respondents. poll found that the Canadian chartered accountants placed more emphasis than U.S. CPAs on using technology to enable decision support and analytics and on managing their IT investments and spending. U.S. respondents gave greater weight to managing IT risks, ensuring privacy, and, most notably, preventing and responding to computer fraud. CPA CONFIDENCE SLIPS U.S. CPAs surveyed were less confident than their Canadian counterparts of the ability of their organizations to achieve their top technology initiatives this year (see Exhibit 2). …

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