Solving the Puzzle of IT for Sarbanes-Oxley: IT's Role in Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

摘要

Sudoku puzzles have more in common with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act than one might think. The logic-based puzzle, created by Nikoli Co. Ltd. of Japan, is about strategy and analysis, and can be daunting when first attempted. Once a strategy is developed, a player can work through multiple levels of difficulty using the established tactics as a guide. When it became clear that IT would play an important role in public company compliance of Sarbanes-Oxley, the IT sector had to start from scratch to develop a compliance strategy, i.e., a control framework that would become standard practice for all IT managers. The overall feeling was similar to a person trying to solve a Sudoku puzzle for the first time: the information had to add up, but the trick was finding the most efficient way to assess the IT controls associated with financial data integrity.