Sarbanes Oxley - Section 404
By: Erica R. Thomas

The section titled 404 corresponds to the requirements for effective internal controls by corporations falling under the jurisdiction of The Act. According to Guardian Digital, "Under Section 404 management must institute a comprehensive internal control structure which includes appropriated procedures to ensure accurate and complete financial reporting." Management must conduct an annual assessment regarding the effectiveness of this structure and it must be supported by documented evidence and validation of management’s assessment by a registered public accounting firm. According to Robert Moeller in his book, "Sarbanes-Oxley and the New Internal Auditing Rules", a system or process has good internal controls if it accomplishes its stated mission, produces accurate and reliable data, complies with applicable laws and organization policies, provides for economical and efficient uses of resources, and provides for appropriate safeguarding of assets. The annual internal controls reports must state the responsibility of management for establishing and maintaining an adequate internal control structure and procedures for financial report and must contain an assessment of the effectiveness of the internal control structure for procedures of the company for financial reporting.

The Act affects every level of an organization, however much of the compliance issues will be dealt by the upper-level executives as well as finance and IT departments. Overall, The Act’s main concern is the security and integrity of financial information. As stated by Guardian Digital, "Given that almost all business information today is created, stored, and shared electronically, information technology, with special regard to information security, is a significant component of the effective internal controls mandated by SOX."

Any aspect of information technology controls which directly affects the processes or procedures involved in creating and preparing corporate data, including all hardware, software, and IT policies relevant to the preparation and retention of information would then be subject to compliance to the act.

According to SOX, all corporations must pass a set of rules for every division within a company that may be involved in the generation, manipulation, and reporting of corporate information. With regard to IT departments, however, these policies will be created to drive security and ensure the integrity of all information contained on the network. Documented policies and procedures set acceptable rules for employees and executives conduct alike and furthermore, provide blueprints on how certain situations should most effectively be handled eliminating guesswork and inadvertent transgressions. Setting information security policies, properly enforcing them and proactively evolving existing policies to adjust to corporate growth is the backbone for SOX compliance and is essential to achieve optimum performance and security on the system.

Although properly executed acceptable use policies are a good defense against many of the internal threats facing corporate infrastructure, they cannot protect the integrity of corporate data alone. A solid infrastructure incorporates numerous technologies including those that will protect corporate confidentiality, the continuity of secure network operations, and further assist in enforcing corporate network and Internet policies. These solutions should include firewalls for traffic monitoring, comprehensive auditing features to reveal user and system activity, strong encryption mechanisms to ensure data integrity when transferring pertinent information, user authentication mechanisms such as passwords and digital certification, and a system back-up module to provide critical recovery services. A cohesive collection of all these applications is a step in the right direction for SOX compliance as well as a chance for organizations to empower their IT infrastructure through technologically advanced applications. Such improvements not only provide governmental compliance and greater network protection but can also result in a dramatic performance increase.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

Getting to Know Linux Security: File Permissions - Welcome to the first tutorial in the 'Getting to Know Linux Security' series. The topic explored is Linux file permissions. It offers an easy to follow explanation of how to read permissions, and how to set them using chmod. This guide is intended for users new to Linux security, therefore very simple. If the feedback is good, I'll consider creating more complex guides for advanced users. Please let us know what you think and how these can be improved.

The Tao of Network Security Monitoring: Beyond Intrusion Detection - To be honest, this was one of the best books that I've read on network security. Others books often dive so deeply into technical discussions, they fail to provide any relevance to network engineers/administrators working in a corporate environment. Budgets, deadlines, and flexibility are issues that we must all address. The Tao of Network Security Monitoring is presented in such a way that all of these are still relevant.

Encrypting Shell Scripts - Do you have scripts that contain sensitive information like passwords and you pretty much depend on file permissions to keep it secure? If so, then that type of security is good provided you keep your system secure and some user doesn't have a "ps -ef" loop running in an attempt to capture that sensitive info (though some applications mask passwords in "ps" output).

 

Take advantage of our Linux Security discussion list! This mailing list is for general security-related questions and comments. To subscribe send an e-mail to security-discuss-request@linuxsecurity.com with "subscribe" as the subject.

Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headline.

Write Comment
Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site.. Such material will be removed.
Name:
Title:
Comment:
Code:*

Powered by AkoComment!