Information Technology

Our information technology professionals provide IT examination services as one of their core services. The information technology examination function is critical to your organization's successful operation because it can identify risks and provide solutions to mitigate them. Our service provides thorough testing and detailed process evaluation over information systems by certified experts and experienced professionals.

Wipfli LLP’s IT examination services are designed to identify and evaluate the quantity of the risks and the quality of the controls and security measures in place over your information systems. The most critical objective of the information technology examination is an evaluation of the protection of critical assets within the information systems. Our procedures include:

• Information security
• Safeguarding nonpublic customer information
• Operational policies and procedures
• Management involvement and oversight
• Vendor management
• Business continuity planning
• Core processing systems
• Electronic funds transfer systems
• Network, personal computer, and firewall controls
• Electronic banking applications and controls

Keeping your information systems and the data they contain safe and secure from unwanted intruders is a regulatory requirement and a fiscal responsibility.  From proper configuration and management of the systems to employee security awareness, it takes an ongoing effort to keep your customers’ information secure and private.

Wipfli’s seasoned professionals and certified experts will perform a comprehensive assessment of security risk to your network infrastructure systems and identify any weaknesses in your financial institution’s information systems and security policies.  Our team will also assess the effectiveness of your institution's security training and awareness program and customize solutions to your institution’s information systems environment.

Though you strive to provide seamless customer service and transparency to your customers, customers still often request validation of your internal business process controls.  For this reason, you need to offer transparency of information with open auditing of customer-related records to meet and exceed customer expectations.  Wipfli can assist in providing an objective analysis of your business process controls.

The Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, Service Organizations, is a guideline that allows service organizations to disclose their business control activities and processes to their customers and their customers’ auditors in a uniform reporting format.  A SAS 70 Audit is not a predetermined set of control objectives/activities that organizations must achieve.  However, a SAS 70 Audit allows organizations to demonstrate business control objectives.  It also provides the ability to evolve controls and increase the level of audit evidence, thereby demonstrating improvements to customers and business partners.

There are currently two types of SAS 70 examinations:

• Type I - Describes controls as of a specific point in time
• Type II - Includes the description and detailed testing of controls over a minimum six-month period

Have you ever wondered how your organization would continue operating if there was an event that affected the business, like a power outage? Are you confident that all your data is backed up and recoverable? Do you know what you would need to do to restore all your systems and business processes to normal operations if a disaster occurred?

If answering any of these questions makes you uneasy, now may be the time to assess, update, or build your disaster recovery plan (DRP).

Our DRP team’s focus is helping clients with the protection of data and other organizational assets. While most organizations will not experience the direct effect of a catastrophic event, lesser disasters happen every day, and the impact can still be substantial because the interruption of service delivery is costly from both human and financial perspectives. We can assess your organization’s need for disaster recovery or business continuity and develop a framework that helps to elaborate a strategy for protecting all critical business assets.