ABSTRACT
Both of the following examples are real and occurred in companies in which one of the authors worked as a consultant. In both situations, IS auditors played a critical role in not only preventing significant monetary loss for the company, but also in enhancing the image of the company to its stakeholders:
• Scenario 1. One fine morning, auditors from Software Publishers Association (SPA) knocked on the doors of one of your business units. They wanted to verify that every copy of every software package in your business unit was properly licensed. The unit had 1700 microcomputers on a local area network. Fortunately, information systems (IS) auditors had recently conducted an audit of software licenses in the business unit. This encouraged the IS auditors and business managers from the company to work closely with SPA auditors who reviewed the audit work and tested a sample of the microcomputers at the company’s facility. The SPA auditors commended the business unit for its exemplary records and outstanding monitoring of software licenses. The investigation was completed in a few hours and the company was given a clean bill in the software licensing audit.
