IT Audit: Commerce Department

Today, the Auditor General presented to the Hon. Speaker of the House of Representatives another Information Technology (IT) audit report that this time deals with the Commerce Department.  This Report essentially analyses and comments upon the overall operational effectiveness of the IT and Information Systems currently being used by the Department.

One of the principal aims of this assignment was to collect and analyse evidence to determine whether the Commerce Department has the necessary controls to ensure that its IT and Information Systems maintain data integrity, safeguard assets, allow organisational goals to be achieved effectively and are conducive to making efficient use of the Government IT related resources.

The report reviewed seven software applications used within the Commerce Department in terms of ease-of-use, security controls, account management and hosting services. 
When reviewing the Department’s effective use of the License Management System (LMS), the Trademarks System (TMS) and the Trademarks web application (TMview), the National Audit Office (NAO) noted that:

•  1,944 trade licences were issued through the LMS in 2013, in comparison to 1,188 in  2012; 
• 999 trademarks were registered in the TMS between July 2013 and July 2014;
• 52,062 trademarks, which were provided by the Commerce Department, can be accessed from TMview, out of 24,477,698 trademarks that were placed by various participating Intellectual Property Offices worldwide.

From a physical security aspect, the NAO noted that the Commerce Department lacks in physical access controls.  In this regard, the NAO was informed that discussions are  underway between the related stakeholders to improve the current situation.  Whilst reviewing the Information Security of the Department, the NAO noted that whereas the IT applications hosted at the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) are covered by the agency’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP), the Department does not have a formalised BCP at a department level. The NAO recommended that the department’s BCP is drawn up and adopted.