Audience
Auditors.
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Duration
1 day, but can be customised to your requirements.
This course is available on site only. Please call for details.
Course Objectives
The concept of auditor independence is frequently mentioned in audit textbooks, and is a principle that all auditors would like to adhere to. In most audits, however, the concept of independent access to data is often undermined by the basic operational problem of gaining access to the data in the first place, leaving the auditor almost totally reliant on the system administrator for the provision of control information. It needn't be like that – there are a variety of tools out there that auditors can use to generate their own audit data extracts, sometimes using only the basic tools that a standard PC workstation may already have installed on it.
In this practical one-day seminar from our "Need to Know" series, we will demonstrate the use of some of the built-in capabilities of Windows software and how it can be used to interact with standard audit tools such as IDEA and a few basic add-on pieces of software to increase audit independence and allow the extract of basic control information from operating systems and databases.
After the course, you can take away the software tools used for the data extraction (subject to software licensing conditions where appropriate) so that you can continue to use them in your own audits. A 'hands-on'version of the course is available for auditors who want to try these techniques for themselves and gain practical experience of data extraction techniques.
Course Content
Introduction to Windows built-in tools
What's available on a Windows PC?
Command-line redirection.
Directory listing.
Text processing tools.
The FOR, FIND and FINDSTR commands.
The NET command and its uses.
Using Windows networking commands.
Data Linking and ODBC
What is ODBC?
ODBC drivers.
What can you connect to.
Linking MS Office to Oracle, SQL Server etc.
Using IDEA through ODBC.
Extracting data from Windows systems
DumpSec and its uses.
Using Windows command-line tools.
Do you need to be a Windows administrator?
Extracting data from Active Directory.
The Windows Scripting Host (WSH).
Using WSH and ADSI to extract audit data.
Windows scripting with VBScript and PowerShell.
Audit Automation – spreadsheets that write themselves.
What if you've only got Excel? - formulas to handle Active Directory data.
Oracle and SQL Server
Writing Oracle data extraction scripts.
Accessing the data dictionary.
The database administrator views and how to use them.
SQL Server – the system tables and what's in them.
Using SQL Server stored procedures for auditing.
Using SQL-DMO to script your audit.
UNIX systems
Where UNIX system information is kept – key files.
Essential UNIX data utilities and how to use them.
Writing a UNIX audit script.
Auditing VMware's Vpshere with PowerCLI commands.