AICPA 2007 Top Technology Initiatives

See exclusive online article, Top Tech Initiatives Defined.

The late, great science-fiction author Isaac Asimov penned much wisdom. In his somewhat autobiographical, “My Own View,” he opined on change: “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be …. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”

Those words, while true when written more than 25 years ago, hold even more truth today. We, as a society and a profession, face a heart-throbbing rate of change led by technology, and while our response is often “technological,” it is equally important that we respond with appropriately adapted business rules. More colloquially put, we must learn to “roll with the punches.”

The AICPA’s 18 th Annual Top Technology Initiatives listing is a great barometer of change. In addition to its Certified Information Technology Professional (CITP) Credential holders and IT Section members, the AICPA collaborated with the Information Technology Alliance (ITA) and ISACA, whose members also participated in the survey because they share similar perspectives on the top technologies impacting practitioners and technology professionals who work closely with practitioners today. More than 1,500 participants ranked 30 technology initiatives they felt will have the most significant impact in the next 12 to 18 months.

The component issues come and go — rise and fall — and while the individual issues influence each of us differently, the over-arching weight of “change” affects us all. By discussing the individual components of the 10 most highly rated technologies, the purpose of this article is to help accountants recognize and (hopefully) avoid the dangers, while capitalizing on the opportunities of what Asimov so skillfully described as “change, continuing change, inevitable change.”

Information Security Management

I’m certain that as we evolved from hunter-gatherers to agrarian farmers, one of the first problems we solved was security. We had to lock up our crops and livestock (the measure of wealth in that society) to prevent theft — and we’ve been locking up our treasures ever since. Looking back, it seems as if it were easier. After all, a cow is pretty large, which makes it easy to protect. Unfortunately, today’s “treasure” is small — in fact, invisible. And because technology is so advanced, today’s treasure is very difficult to protect. I’m referring, of course, to electronic information (data). Coincidentally, Information Security has been the number one AICPA Top Technology for five years running.

This issue includes efforts and processes designed to protect your data from malicious or unauthorized access. While those of you in business, industry, government and education certainly have a challenge and an obligation to safeguard your company, agency or organizational data, CPAs and accountants in public accounting have an even bigger challenge and obligation.

Your clients look to you for leadership and guidance in how to protect what is, in many cases, their single most valuable asset — electronic data. In either case, your responsibility is to make sure that the firewall is properly deployed and updates are regularly installed and done so in a timely fashion. Virus signatures must be constantly updated; in fact, some best practices call for hourly checks. And, as rudimentary as it sounds, every machine should be set to automatically download and install operating system updates.

Your information security management system is analogous to a chain; it is only as strong as its weakest link. As a practitioner, you can, and should be, looking for that weakest link and helping to correct the weakness. Con sequently, because security is a journey and not a destination, you must then move to the next weakest link and try to correct that weakness.