Attacks and Failures: Who to Blame

Attacks and Failures: Who to Blame

Introduction

Accounting Information Systems (AIS) are a tool which, when incorporated into the field of Information and Technology systems (IT), were designed to help in the management and control of topics related to firms' economic-financial area. But the stunning advance in technology has opened up the possibility of generating and using accounting information from a strategic viewpoint. Since this is important for all firms, it is more important even for medium-sized and small ones which need this information to deal with a higher degree of uncertainty in the competitive market (El Louadi, 1998). Thus, they need to improve their systems and data processing capacity to match their information needs (Van de Ven and Drazin, 1985). Investing in staff training, improving the quality of products and internal processes and increasing AIS investment will be the leverage for achieving a stronger, more flexible corporate culture to face continual changes in the environment. Innovation is the incentive with which a virtuous circle will be put in place, leading to better firm performance and a reduction in the financial and organizational obstacles, while making it possible to access capital markets.

This is a question that has been asked many times over. There are many different opinions on the answer. My thought is that companies not only should but must be held liable. In this age of information capture the companies capturing the information must make sure their accounting information system (AIS) is constantly updated and checked for signs of attack from outside sources.

Discussion

Companies have installed systems which are becoming quite sophisticated and employees are being trained in security measures in hopes of controlling some of the damage wrought by outside forces. However, criminals and terrorists have many different ways of attacking systems. While many in the public do not hear about many of these attacks, some do make their way into the media, especially if a lot of information has been stolen or an extremely robust virus is detected.

Some are of the thought that even though some losses have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the losses are tolerable. The difficulty is that as the attackers become more advanced the attacks will also become more advanced. It becomes apparent that cooperation between governments and their constituents in necessary to safeguard the systems (Goodman, Hassebroek, and Klein, N.D.).

It is a costly function of each company to keep their systems up-to-date and attack-free. However, it is my opinion that this is a cost each company must budget for. Companies need to educate management to be able to spot the areas that are susceptible to outside sources that could attack their systems. Once an attack has happened it is too late to beef up a system. Not only does the company have to report the attack and what information has been stolen, the company risks losing business because of the attack.

In a report put out by the Ponemon Institute and cited by McKendrick in an article for ...