Security News > 2021 > December > How can organizations ease audit overload?

A research from Vanson Bourne examines how financial services are faring with the ever-increasing challenge of audit overload. The study, which surveyed 200 U.S. IT security professionals in the financial services industry, revealed that 97 percent financial institutions experience challenges when working on audits.

The state of the financial services' audit process Financial organizations spend an average of 71 working days each quarter responding to audit evidence requests, have an average of 13 different IT security compliance and privacy regulations with which they must comply, and have an average of 54 dedicated people who work on IT security compliance and/or privacy regulations.

In 2021, 45 percent of organizations experienced employee sickness due to stress-related illness and 36 percent reported employee dissatisfaction, as compared to 34 percent and 19 percent, respectively, in 2020.

While 64 percent of financial organizations use commercial governance, risk and compliance solutions; IT GRC solutions; or IT risk management products, 47 percent use a custom solution and 37 percent are still using spreadsheets to manage their compliance processes.

"With a new year quickly approaching, it's time for organizations to rethink the current toolbox being used in their audit process by embracing automation, streamlining workflows and employing capabilities that bring the entire security compliance operation into perspective."

"For organizations to streamline workflows and get ahead when it comes to audits, they need to implement processes that will accelerate audit activities and pull together massive amounts of compliance data in a concise and meaningful way," said Tracy.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/12/09/financial-services-audit/