RE: Papers on Sex as an audit tool?

From: Green, Neale S (neale.green_at_eds.com)
Date: 03/10/04

  • Next message: Sriram Lakshmanan: "RE: Papers on Sex as an audit tool?"
    To: "'Vel'" <vel@sympatico.ca>
    Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 10:24:26 +1100
    
    

    There are some information feeds that are required for the audits, the point
    was that more information is requested, and provided, than SHOULD be
    provided. As a general rule, auditors, like developers and many other
    people, will often ask for "the lot", so that they can pick what they need
    out of one big bucket of information, rather than have to make multiple,
    specific, requests for the information that they should be reviewing. That
    "big bucket" will often include many pieces of information which should not
    be general knowledge.

    The issue isn't so much of why the audit firm would attack the customer's
    environment, but that an excessive amount of information which should be
    kept controlled ( as it provides details that COULD be used for an attack )
    is circulated where other parties could get access to it, because the
    requests are not controlled as they should be.

    As for the checklist point, it has been pointed out by a senior audit person
    who had a long standing relationship with a number of the "Big 4 Audit"
    audit firms, that the customer will often request specific items which are
    not covered by the generic checklists, which then require additional
    requests to be made. If the audit team in question do not have the technical
    basis for the specific environment, the request will often be, once again,
    much "broader" than necessary to extract the specific information to answer
    the specific request of the customer.

    Regards,

    Neale Green CISSP
    Information Security
    Phone: +61 2 937 80225
    Mobile: 0414 979 627
    Fax: +61 2 9312 6116
    Email: neale.green@eds.com

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Vel [mailto:vel@sympatico.ca]
    Sent: Wednesday, 10 March 2004 12:49 PM
    To: Green, Neale S; pen-test@securityfocus.com
    Subject: Re: Papers on Sex as an audit tool?

    Sorry,
    Might be a silly question.

    But what is the gain to Big Audit firms from the gathering of such sensitive
    info from their clients ?
    Another naive question; but why would the "Audit firm" want to attack their
    client's network ???

    If it is an audit why aren't they using their checklist ?

    Thx.

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  • Next message: Sriram Lakshmanan: "RE: Papers on Sex as an audit tool?"

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