ISACA launches audit program for social media governance

The Social Media Audit/Assurance Program focuses on effective policies, training and awareness, and monitoring, according to ISACA.

By Bob Violino

March 10, 2011 — CSO —

ISACA, a global association of 95,000 IT assurance, security and governance professionals, has launched a new customizable audit program to help enterprises address the complex and emerging area of social media governance.

The Social Media Audit/Assurance Program focuses on effective policies, training and awareness, and monitoring, according to ISACA, which provides certifications, advocacy and education on information systems assurance and security, enterprise governance and management of IT and IT-related risk and compliance.

The association also recently released audit/assurance programs for Apache Web Services Server, MySQL Server, VMware Server Virtualization, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 Web Services Server, Windows Active Directory, Mobile Computing Security, and Cloud Computing Management.

Norman Kelson, founder and president of CPE Interactive and author of ISACA's audit programs, says the audit programs are developed in response to the requirements of ISACA members and their employers. "Social media is one of the major technologies emerging during the past year and ranked high on the list" of priorities, Kelson says.

Social media is different than traditional advertising and marketing channels due to its populist nature, "in which anyone with an Internet-attached device can, with near anonymity and without accountability, participate in public or private information or disinformation sharing, depending on access privileges to a social media Web site," Kelson says.

Robert Stroud, vice president and service management and governance evangelist at CA Technologies, and an ISACA vice president, says social media "is rapidly becoming part of business as usual for many organizations, playing a fundamental role in marketing and communication programs."

As with all other communication and customer contact programs, Stroud says, the effective controls need to be in place "and these need to be audited to ensure the effective management of the media and, more importantly, the information flow and management of risk."

The audit programs provide guidelines and direction for the practice of IT audit and assurance and can be used as a roadmap to complete a specific process, according to ISACA. All audit programs are free for ISACA members and $45 for nonmembers.

Read more about it audit in CSOonline's IT Audit section.

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