Information technology is the driving force of many organizations today. In today’s business environment, information technology plays a critical role that management cannot ignore, if they want to maintain a competitive advantage. Organizations in the technology industry serve as business enablers to many, but face very similar challenges as their beneficiaries. Some of the challenges technology companies have to deal with include:

• Maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the sensitive information assets of their organization for their clients.
• Ensuring the right controls are in place to protect the information assets of their clients. They are also required to conduct an assessment of the design and operating effectiveness of these controls. The result of this assessment is required to measure the effect the respective services offered have on the financial statements of the clients.
• Transmitting, processing or storing credit card information requires compliance with the Payment Card Industry Standard (PCI DSS).
• Developing applications involved in the authorization and settlement of credit card transactions requires compliance with the Payment Application Standard (PADSS).
• Hackers belonging to political groups and/or organized crime are constantly trying to breach into organization networks and information systems.
• If a security breach is underway or has occurred, government agencies need to have a plan to quickly respond to the incident. In such situations, it is also necessary to ensure digital evidence is identified, preserved, and analyzed so that can be successfully presented in court.
• Technology advancements must be scouted for new implementation while maintaining assets and information systems that are protected and secure such as an access security enabled wireless network which protects against the threat of malicious individuals hacking wireless networks.

To address these challenges, the company needs to adopt the expertise of technology risk consulting and security controls to its infrastructure to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the company’s information and communications and to protect against the threat of malicious individuals hacking wireless networks.

How ERM can Help:

Assistance from technology risk consulting specialists like ERM ease the burden of both interpreting requirements, keeping abreast of changing technology regulations, and fulfilling industry and federal demands.