Most companies working on Sarbanes-Oxley projects are
focused on documenting their internal financial controls to meet
the compliance deadlines that take effect late this
year.
But the law's requirements are also beginning to generate
interest in computer forensics tools that could be used to help
identify potential cases of financial fraud.
For example, Avery Dennison is piloting software announced this
week by Oversight Technologies which can be used to monitor finance
systems for irregular transactions.
Mark Van Holsbeck, director of enterprise security at Avery
Dennison, said the software should cut the time workers spend
poring over printouts of financial data to determine whether any
information has been altered or corrupted.
Avery Dennison's use of the Oversight tool, which is being
tested on a combination of Wintel and HP-UX platforms, was not
driven by the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Van Holsbeck
said. But the technology should help the company satisfy components
of the financial reporting law.
Other users are expected to come to the same conclusion about
computer forensics technology, which can track how data is used and
modified.
Meta Group analyst John Van Decker said he expected to see an
uptick in forensics technology investments related to
Sarbanes-Oxley starting this summer.
Michael Rasmussen, an analyst at Forrester Research, estimated
that about a third of the clients he works with have put an
investigative response plan in place, including the use of business
intelligence tools and other technologies to help monitor ERP and
e-mail systems for evidence of potential wrongdoing.
Pricing for Oversight's monitoring tools starts at $85,000 and
can go up to about $200,000, based on the number of end users, said
chief executive officer Patrick Taylor.
Other suppliers of forensics tools include Guidance Software,
Consul Risk Management and Addamark Technologies which will
announce upgraded software for storing and tracking system log
data.
Thomas Hoffman writes for Computerworld