Question

What is the importance of the Accounting Information Systems (AIS)? Mention about the presence of a chief information officer (CIO) or an information systems department, and other systems related issues.

Explain what would be the best entity’s attitude toward systems security and describe its strategies for dealing with systems security issues (e.g. intrusion detection systems, firewalls, etc.). Discuss the what would be a vulnerability of the entity’s AIS to violation by employees and attacks by hackers, and give examples.

Answer 1

AIS is an informantion system in which accounting activities are tracked and recorded by the means of electronic method. Under this, activities which were done manually before are done electronically. Ex. Quickbooks

Importance of AIS:

• It helps in recording accounting transactions in real time
• It can sync the activities in branches centrally at the head office server leading to better monitoring
• It would also enable cost savings where it would be easy to maintain accounting records
• It improves accounting accuracy

System Related Issues

• Employees at entry level not fully trained about how to use the system software. These are the persons primarily responsible to record transactions and it is often seen that since they are not trained they wrongly enter transaction detail. For ex. In an Walmart, if a person making bill is not trained properly to how to use barcode scanner he may scan wrongly or not be able to at all
• Complexity to use, some systems are very complex to use and thus should be made with user friendly UI
• Some systems are also costly to maintain in terms of anti virus security, regular updations etc

Measures for Security

• Physical security where systems and servers are manned by security and authorized to be entered in to by designated persons only
• Authentication measures such a finger print scanners should be depolyed so no one can access system without permission
• Anti Virus appropriate to the needs of the organisation should be deployed and updated. Time to time tests of them also should be conducted to see its effectivenss
• Proper backup should be maintained with designated official for the purpose.

Discuss the what would be a vulnerability of the entity’s AIS to violation by employees and attacks by hackers, and give examples.

• AIS success depends mainly upon the employees. If employees are not given proper training or they decide to fraud the company by embazzling accounts than it can cause serious problems for the company. Ex. an employee at bank can easily transfer small amounts in cents to a particular amount, amount would be low so it might not be identified and would led to loss to customers as well as bank. It can also cause legal liability to the bank