FDIC Compliance and Disaster Recovery, TechRepublic
FDIC regulations for disaster recovery planning for banks and similar financial institutions have become much more involved over the past several years which means IT may have a more visible role in your next FDIC audit.

Database Automation: The Overlooked Piece of Compliance, Compliance Pipeline
If your database administrator, like many, has full and unobstructed influence over the databases they oversee, then your IT security controls may not be in compliance.

Rebuilding IT Culture after Organization Change, Forrester Research
When IT management changes the structure of its organization to align with an IT goal, it can achieve smooth operations more quickly by taking specific steps to create the new organizational culture.

Develop a Network Change Configuration Strategy that Will Grow with Your Organization, TechRepublic
Change is inevitable, and so are the problems caused by unplanned or undocumented changes to your network. By establishing formal change management policies to be followed when any significant modifications are made, you can help ensure that those changes have a positive effect on the network as a whole.

Security Risk Management: The Answer to Security, IT Observer
With the frequency and severity of threats increasing daily, Security Risk Management (SRM) is quickly becoming the by-word for intelligent IT security. Best practices SRM provides security teams with a continuously accurate snapshot of the security situation so they can correct lapses in internal controls and ensure full compliance at all times.

ITIL for the CIO: Answers to frequently Asked Questions, TechRepublic
This article answers common questions about IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and serves as an aid to CIOs considering implementing ITIL in their organizations.

Brandishing Technology to Thwart Identity Thieves, BankInfoSecurity
For the banking industry, the ease with which identity thefts were perpetrated in 2005 has pushed the industry into overdrive to combat the scourge. The FFIEC places most of the blame on reliance on "single-factor" authentication,

Compliance Still a Hot IT Topic, Processor
Customers are increasingly aware of the importance of your security policies. This is why differentiating your company with better overall policies and procedures can be a silver lining around what some regard as the black cloud of a regulated environment.

Continuous Auditing Is Here To Stay, Business Finance
Now that the need for transactional efficiencies, fraud prevention, and real-time financial reporting is acute, mainstream finance is finally jumping on the bandwagon.

Current Developments for Audit Committees 2006, CFOdirect
PwC's annual publication briefs inform audit committee members on important developments for carrying out their oversight responsibilities.

Privacy Concerns Reset Marketing Boundaries, BAI Online
By not sufficiently protecting data, banks are putting their reputations on the line. Regulatory guidance provides a starting point for the discussion on how financial institutions can conduct effective marketing outreach while safeguarding customer information.

Beating Back Fraud, Business Finance
Businesses and their banking partners are devoting more resources to the ongoing fight against financial fraud making fraud-detection software that incorporates sophisticated predictive analytics that can ferret out thieves a popular choice.

Whistleblowers or Lamplighters? AccountingWEB.com
This article discusses the implications and repercussions of being a whistleblower or “lamplighter” and their role in reporting unethical acts and violations in the workplace.

Fighting Back Against Phishing, BankInfoSecurity.com
Account hijacking and other forms of identity theft can be perpetrated in a number of ways including phishing attacks which pose a genuine threat to the integrity of the financial system. An effective counter-phishing program should utilize consumer and employee education according to the FDIC’s four-point program.

10 ways to Monitor what Your Users are Doing with Company Computers, TechRepublic
Even if the company's management philosophy allows for some private use of company equipment, network administrators these days must take on the added task of monitoring employees' use of the computers and network. Here are effective ways to keep an eye on what your users are doing.

Fair Credit Reporting Act Revised Examination Procedures, FDIC: FIL-18-2006
FFIEC has approved revised examination procedures which incorporate new requirements created by the FACT Act of 2003, and have been reorganized to facilitate risk-focused compliance examinations. The new, modular format is designed to assist financial institutions in organizing compliance programs and internal reviews.

Meeting the Risk Challenge with a Special Committee, ABA Banking Online
Risk-based regulation and examination has become the standard approach for many aspects of banking. Community banks can build a risk focus into management and governance processes by taking the approach of one Massachusetts bank that formed a Risk Assessment Management Committee – a move that has also helped demonstrate to examiners that the bank takes a “risk-wise” review of its activities.

Putting the Value into Enterprise Risk Management - Financial Services Foresight
This article offers new thinking on how to improve firms' use of ERM by taking a value-based approach. This involves establishing the value of the firm as its starting point and assessing the impact of different risks on both financial and operational value.

An intro to risk management, TechRepublic
Everybody's talking about risk management, but what does it really mean and how do you implement it within your IT organization? In short, it requires assessing your network's vulnerabilities and threat exposure, and taking the steps necessary to mitigate them.

The Five Keys To Building A High-Performance Organization, Business Performance Management
This Gartner review details the practices of successful companies in a variety of industries, revealing a focus on performance management and identifying five characteristics that are key to success.

Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism, Harvard Business School
Positive values are a fixture on corporate mission statements these days. But a values-driven organization poses unique risks for its leaders—in particular, charges of hypocrisy and employee cynicism—when leaders fail to live up to the values they've articulated.

Planning for Continuity, Bank Systems & Technology
Rather than rely on disaster recovery plans, banks are shifting focus to business continuity plans to keep operations running through a disaster. To ensure communication and access to data, many institutions are leveraging web-based technologies and protection of mission-critical data outside of the bank's four walls.

Mergers: Back to “Happily Ever After”, Resilience Report
Mergers are often considered risky, but when they’re executed correctly, there’s no better way to grow a company. This analysis shows that at least one of three critical factors is usually evident in mergers that prove successful.

KPMG Roundtable: Tackling Identity Theft, KPMG Technology Insider
A panel from KPMG's Data Governance and Information Privacy Team discusses identity theft and the ways companies are fighting a problem that affects all levels of their businesses.

How Low Can You Go? Intelligent Enterprise Magazine
A comprehensive survey sponsored by the Big Four accounting firms finds that SOX compliance costs were likely to have declined in 2005 and identifies process and control factors that can drive down the cost of compliance in your finance organization.

Here’s a Loophole that the Feds Would Create on Purpose, Treasury & Finance
After two years of suffering under the costly burden of 404, small and midsize companies could get relief through outright exemption or reduced standards; but, the move is meeting stiff resistance from corporate governance experts and others.

Understand the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance on your disaster recovery plan, TechRepublic
Preparation for disaster recovery in light of SOX has two primary parts: putting systems in place to completely protect all data required to meet the reporting regulations and any future requests for clarification; and, clearly and expressly documenting all these procedures.

Sarbanes-Oxley May Up the Ante for GPL Violations, IT Manager's Journal
This white paper review points out that public companies selling GPLed and other embedded software may be violating the GNU General Public License and could face a violation under the intellectual property disclosure requirements of SOX. Specifically, companies that don't comply with the license, have no right to use the software. If they’re telling shareholders they do, that is a misrepresentation which carries far greater SOX consequences than a GPL violation’s slap on the wrist.

Former SEC Heads Talk Sarbanes-Oxley, InvestmentNews
Former Securities and Exchange Commission chiefs air their views on the recent SEC advisory panel proposal to exempt the smallest U.S. public companies from certain requirements mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley.