Business Lunch Tips for Auditors

1. Always place you napkin in your lap and use it as needed.

2. Always say please and thank you.

3. Don't eat too fast or too slow, try to stay in step with your host.

4. Always take modest portions and not heaping helpings.

5. If you don't like something just leave it on your plate.

6. Be polite and respectful at all times

7. Never smoke at the table.

8. Never begin to eat until everyone at your table has been served.

9. Never slurp a drink or with a straw.

10. Never chew ice during a meal or at the table.

11. Never use toothpicks at the table.

12. Never get up and leave the table without first excusing yourself.

Cut Your Public Audit Bill

1. Bag food to work, to save on food during working sessions with auditors

2. Change procedures and processes only if you really have to; otherwise, don't change a thing.

3. Close books monthly on time.

4. How many sub-organizations do you really need? Limit organization units.

5. Anticipate what auditors will ask for.

6. USE INTERNAL AUDIT STAFF and get more audits done!!!!

Why Travel on Audits Light

#10: Nobody can steal your luggage

#9:  Be more independent

#8:  Extra time to get to the airport

#7: Volunteer to be bumped, as no worry about luggage coming on the same flight

#6: Catch public transportation, as no suitcases to roll around among lots of people

#5:  Don’t wait for getting luggage

#4:  Avoid tipping

#3:  Be environmental, as fewer luggage means less weight to lift

#2:  Avoid fees

#1: “Lost Luggage

Photo Evidence Audit

Check for:

• Document title
• Description
• Description writer
• Author
• Title
• Style
• Key Words

Useful tools include Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Bridge, Photoshop, or Lightroom, Exifer, or ExitToolGUI.

Lava Lamp for Auditors

Generate findings about the future. You cannot change yesterday.
If you wish to remember some facts, try intensely to forget them.
Auditing skills promote full employment for auditors.
If you laid all your sampling tests end to end, would they reach a conclusion?
Get your facts first, then you can properly arrange them.
An audit is just a flurry of activity without a program.
Audit opinions are plenty, implementations can be expensive.

Develop Your Own Voice as Auditor

Start with a clean slate. Determine your own moral conduct and practice sticking to it.

Stope over-analyzing what everyone else thinks! You cannot please everyone, and you cannot live in your head only all the time.

Search and Find Your Own Reasons to help others by auditing.

Audit your own goals, attitudes, resentments by asking yourself every question in the "book."

Write down your own reasons for passion to be an auditor. When you write things down you automatically reflect, and remember all those written "to do" lists that did get done.

Don't just file it, do something, act on your reasons to be great at auditing.

Don't worry about the dead ends. Just back up and move forward.

Achieve Happiness As Auditor - Yes You Can

1. We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives. We block annoying people, and lose ability to handle annoyance. Find annoying people and refresh your coping skills.

2. Don't forget to keep around a few annoying friends. It will sharpen your skills in dealing with incompatible people, and help you function in the world with people not like you.

3. Texting is for thumb people. Studies show that over 40% of what you write in emails is misunderstood.

4. Online friends don't exits in 3D real world. Only 7% of inter-personal exchange takes place through words, the rest, a mere 93% is non-verbal. We know that we exist, and who we are by seeing ourselves in the mirrors of other people's eyes.

5. No real friends, no spontenous criticism, and we miss it. Non-direct forms of communication are a great way to avoid being honest, by having the time to choose and craft words. We need quirks, humiliations and vulnerabilities that only real friendships provide.

6. Media Negativity Does Affect Us. After constant negative spins on just about everything, we feel at odds with the rest of the world. Like Mark Twain said, turn off all the news, and be happy. Almost no news will really affect your life, and what does affect, you won't be able to change anyway.

7. We feel less because we have less (friends). All these on-line friends don't place demands on us. BUT, we were wired to help and take care of others. We are a product of social interactions, so we need to be connected in real life, not through flat-screen monitors. Find a way to do something simple, but physical to help someone else. It really works.

Scoring Risks

• The adequacy of internal controls
• The potential threats from transactions
• History of problems with system or application
• IT Architecture and Data Classification - is there a match
• The physical and logical security of information, equipment, and premises
• The adequacy of operating management oversight and monitoring
• Human resources, including the experience of management and staff, turnover, technical competence, management’s succession plan, and the degree of delegation
• Senior management oversight and appropriate governance

Great New Email Functions

• Undo sent message
• Snooze this message
• Reply to selected text
• Smart reply templates
• Attachment reminders
• Language-based filtering
• Usage trending
• Related message search

5 Key IT Skills Worth Having

1. Python
2. Java
3. Lisp
4. C/C++
5. Unix form O/S familiarity

Knowing syntax to be able to read would be helpful for some IT Auditors

Sign Your Should Charge More in Consulting Fees

Is that your daily or hourly rate?
They have new jobs after you finish this one.
You work and still get poverty assistance
Hey, any catch with your quote for the job?
Here you go, I have enough cash on me to pay you.
You have no friends among consultants.
You are hired without even telling them how much you charge
As you can't get all the work done, you live on cola and pizza
You get jobs from overseas outsourcers

Measuring Fraud Drivers - Yes, It Can Be Done

Greed Average income compared with number of people living below the poverty line.
Envy Total thefts (robbery, burglary, larceny, and grand theft auto) per capita.
Wrath Number of violent crimes (murder, assault, and rape) per capita.

Sloth Expenditures on art, entertainment, and recreation compared with employment.
Gluttony Number of fast-food restaurants per capita.
Lust Number of STD cases reported per capita.

Pride Aggregate of the other six offenses—because pride is the root of all sin.

Feel free to put add these measures into a dashboard.

Web site Content Hell

You know that you are IN HELL when you see:

• hit counters
• guestbooks
• stale links
• pages forever under construction
• pointless vanity pages
• advertisements from hell
• no email address for feedback
• unstable extensions
• broken HTML
• blinking text
• gratuitous animation
• marquees
• garish backgrounds
• unreadable text/background combinations
• "Best viewed with..."
• pop-up windows
• menus made entirely from image maps
• background MIDI, Flash, Shockwave

Becoming a Hacker

1. Love to solve difficult problems
2. Don't bother trying to solve a previously solved problem: no glory
3. Hate boredom and repetitive work?
4. Love freedom without borders?
5. Forget attitude, impress with competence.
6. Get a really cool shirt at the next Def Con in Las Vegas (usually in August)

Compliance Program Key Elements

1. Corporate Compliance Officer & Compliance Committee

2. Written updated policies and procedures

3. Training and education programs

4. Effective lines of communication

5. Published standards and disciplinary guidelines

6. Auditing and monitoring processes

7. Documented response to offenses

8. Development of corrective action plans

Involving Right Deparments in Compliance Issues

Employee Mistreatment HR, Compliance/Ethics
Accounting Irregularities Audit Committee, External/Internal Auditors, Compliance
Fraud Internal Audit, Loss Prevention, Risk Management, Compliance/Ethics
Workplace Violence Security, Operations, Legal, HR
Employee Theft (other than by head-hunters) Loss Prevention, HR

ETHICS The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations

Written standards of ethical workplace conduct
Means for an employee to anonymously report violations of ethics standards
Orientation or training on ethical workplace conduct
A specific office, phone line, e-mail, or Web site so that emps can get ethics advice
Evaluation of ethical conduct as part of regular performance appraisals
Discipline for employees who commit ethics violations

Compliance Committee Key Issues

1. Communicate with outside auditors
2. Review reports on internal controls
3. Examine all external reporting
4. Read internal audit reports
5. Evaluate internal audit activities, budget, staffing, and responsibilities
6. Consider all inquiries from external sources (including governmental)
7. Deal with all related party transactions and conflict of interests
8. Update conduct and ethics statements
9. Assess compliance program, including corporate communications.
10. Obtain input from Legal, Compliance, Board, and Internal Audit on compliance issues.

On Blogging by "mother of the blog revolution"

Deal with Human Component As Security Threat

Implement the principle of least privilege
Control the use of portable devices on the network
Trust employees, but not too much
Monitor network activity and audit who is doing what
Watch out for curious pokers into network and data security configurations
Determine your single point of failure
Physical security--no compensating controls here.