AIS Attacks and Failures: Who to Blame - Research Paper Example

It provides various benefits for the managers and owners requiring financial transactions, including improving the workflow, improving the processes, increasing flexibility, and providing assistance in decision-making (Romney and Steinbart, 2011). However, AIS has disadvantages, including difficulties in learning the system, re-evaluation, and loss of information. Loss of information either through failure of intentional attacks posses the greatest threat for AIS and the organizations that adopt them.

AIS threats emanate from different sources. If ignored, they may affect reliability and relevance of financial information, resulting to poor decision making by the stakeholders. All firms are responsible for any losses resulting from attacks on their AIS, thus they should and must be held liable. The AIS is a firm’s initiative, and thus its responsibility. Any failures, attacks, or problems that may result from the system are fully liable to the firm. The most common sources of AIS are can be prevented to a certain degree.

Consider the attacks made to AIS during data collection. The firm is liable in ensuring that security measures are in control for secure transactions that are complete, valid, and free from any form of error (Lin and Huang, 2011). The firm should also prevent other hacker activities like piggybacking and masquerading. There are attacks that occur during the processing stage of data. Such attacks include deleting or accessing files, creating illegal programs, and destroying, or altering the logic of a program through viruses, causing the application to processes data incorrectly.

The first fact that justifies the liability of the firm for AIS attacks is the ability of the firm to prevent such occurrences through several control procedures. Secondly, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 formulation of standard accounting practices by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). Part 2 of the PCAOB Audit Standards delegates full responsibility to firms for internal controls and financial reporting (Gelinas, Dull, and Wheeler, 2010). Question Two With the current advancements in internet and computer technology, information systems provide a potential platform for conducting business.

However, the same advancement advantages present critical threats to accounting information systems. AIS carry vital financial information of a company, and any form of failure or attack places the company at risk of losses. Organizations that have operational AIS use them primarily for financial transactions and reporting, which means that an attack will destroy their financial transaction and reporting (Hall, 2011). In this regard therefore, the federal government should design and enforce regulations and laws concerning AIS attacks.

The fact that AIS attack is a form of cyber crime justifies federal government intervention (Lin and Huang, 2011). Currently, the US criminal justice system lacks adequate policies to protect or deter cybercrimes of all forms. However, there are several federal statutes in the US, including 18 USC 1831 that prohibits stealing trade secrets, 18 USC 2510-11 that prohibits electronic communication interception, and 18 USC 2314 that prohibits transportation of converted, fraudulently, and stolen material, including computer data files (Hall, 2011).

Three facts support the federal intervention, design, and enforcement of AIS attacks. First,