Accountants are responsible for handling an organization’s financial transactions, from day-to-day recording, analysis, and reporting of income, payroll, payments, and tax deductions, to the annual reconciliation of the company’s records. Auditors, on the other hand, are generally highly trained accountants who carefully examine a company’s financial history for accuracy and review its accounting methods and procedures to help the company avoid fraud and breach. Similarly, an IT auditor is responsible for analyzing and assessing an organization’s technological infrastructure to find problems with efficiency, risk management, and compliance.
While enterprises’ reliance on IT systems continues to increase, various threats have started to surface as well. IT is playing an increasingly essential role globally in strengthening industrial supervision and internal control. Therefore, it has become a necessity to provide a guaranteed framework for controlling business and IT-related risks. The risks associated with IT impact the information processing and the application of information technology in business functions, and these risks may arise due to uncertain factors and affect organizational goals’ achievement. These uncertain factors include information technology risks at the executive level, general control, and business process levels.
The continuous integration of IT and business puts many Chief Information Security Officers (CIOs) under unprecedented pressure. The IT auditor helps CIOs discover these potential risks and suggests possible solutions. Therefore, business stability and IT risk considerations are the reasons why IT audits are becoming more important in enterprises.
In terms of responding to IT risks, IT auditors must work for their prevention and management. In order to prevent risks, these auditors can help companies identify internal and external threats and take the necessary steps for their prevention. In addition, IT auditors can cooperate with the CIOs to effectively manage the risks found in the audit to make risk prevention methods efficient.
The prime goal of IT auditors is to assist the organization’s information technology managers in fulfilling their responsibilities. In addition, the strategic objectives of the IT auditor are directly related to the improvement of reliability, stability, security, data processing integrity, and accuracy of the information system on which the organization depends. Intending to provide a company with all these benefits, Dane Clinton Mathews entered the information security industry.
Born on March 26, 1945, in Evansville, Indiana, Mathews graduated from Rufus High School in 1963. In 2000, he attended Concordia University Ann Arbor for a bachelor’s in Business Administration and later joined Eastern Michigan University to complete Masters in Information Security. However, his dedication to expanding his knowledge mounted when he attended Marquette University. Along with academic studies, Mathews began to focus on his undying love for basketball, and due to his intellectual and athletic capabilities, he soon received a basketball scholarship. His professional basketball moves made him noticeable in his senior years, which turned out to be in his favor as he was named first-team All-City by the Milwaukee Sentinel and second-team by the Milwaukee Journal.
With the intention to apply his academic expertise in the corporate world, Mathews decided to join Ford Motor Company as an African-American IT Security Risk Auditor. Working as a part of the General Auditor’s Office, he reviewed and evaluated various documented security access controls for the 3000+ businesses and suppliers that had access to Ford Motor Company’s corporate assets. Before working as an IT risk auditor, Mathews worked as an IT Security & Control Project Manager in the same company, where he managed and coordinated the Global Security Controls Coordinators (SCC) security experts to facilitate alignment, collaboration, and problem-solving through various security issues and provided worldwide training. Mathews has been working in the IT sector for 16 years. The expertise he has collected from his journey is extremely diverse and solidifies his persona as the best of both worlds. In addition to being a renowned athletic figure, he remarkably carved his way into the IT industry as well. In addition to being a renowned athletic figure, he remarkably carved his way into the IT industry as well.