Tag: Fraud

Guarding assets with simple controls

The Importance of Basic, Yet Effective, Internal Controls

Last August, Northern Marine Management India, a shipping company located in Powai, a suburb of Mumbai, India, discovered that it has been the victim of a bold heist. The company kept gold coins that it used to honor employees at their retirements. Depending on their years of service, retiring employees Read More

Nursing Home provider PACS Group

PACS Delays Earnings Amid Internal Audit Investigation

Nursing home operator PACS Group delayed the release of its third-quarter earnings, providing only preliminary results on Wednesday as it carries out an internal audit and cooperates with a federal investigation into its referral and reimbursement practices. Originally scheduled for Nov. 7 after market close, PACS now expects to disclose Read More

How a Holistic Approach to Internal Audit Can Help Find Fraud

Taking a holistic view in internal audit means understanding the entirety of a process from start to finish, including its various interconnections and implications. This approach involves thoroughly comprehending the activities involved, the individuals responsible, and the broader impact on the organization. By mapping out the complete beginning-to-end cycle of Read More

Internal Audit's role in finding fraud

Internal Audit’s Increasing Role in Hunting for Fraud

How can internal auditors look for fraud and assess fraud risks while remaining trusted advisors to their audit clients and management? The question is gaining renewed attention, in part because both the new Global Internal Audit Standards from the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and the proposed standards from the Read More

Numbers representing the use of Benford's law

A Powerful Tool to Catch Fraudsters in Their Tracks

Investigators and internal auditors are using a somewhat simple mathematical principle to catch fraudsters. Known as “Benford’s law,” it is the idea that the distribution of digits in multi-digit natural numbers is not random, nor is it equally distributed; instead, it follows a predictable pattern. In the realm of data Read More

Conducting an ethics investigation

How to Conduct an Ethics Investigation from Beginning to End

Ethics investigations can be challenging for just about any organization. If done right, an ethics investigation can help you identify wrongdoing and unethical behavior and put a stop to it before your organization pays the price for not maintaining a conducive and compliant work environment. A poorly executed ethics investigation, Read More

Auditing whistleblower hotlines

Report: Nearly 40 Percent of Companies Don’t Audit Whistleblower Hotlines

A new benchmark report closely examines what is and isn’t working with whistleblower hotline programs, especially as they concern fraud detection. Among the most troubling findings: 25 percent of organizations still don’t have a whistleblower program and among those that do, only 39 percent bother to audit them. The report, Read More

Fraud Prevention

COSO Releases Fraud Risk Management Guide

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) jointly announced the release of the Fraud Risk Management Guide: Second Edition, a new publication that offers a blueprint for helping organizations establish an overall Fraud Risk Management Program. The Guide updates Read More

Cybersecurity risk

Nearly Half of All Ransomware Attacks Target U.S. Companies

Companies based in the United States are the number one target for ransomware, with nearly half (46 percent) of all ransomware attacks happening there, new research by cybersecurity company NordLocker reveals. The study examined several databases of ransomware incidents that affected more than 5,000 companies worldwide. With a joint revenue Read More

Five ‘Under the Radar’ Areas to Audit that May Not Be on the Audit Plan
Internal Auditors, Use Your ‘Spidey Sense’

As internal auditors, we all have a “spidey sense” of what we should be auditing. Sure, we should, of course, conduct comprehensive risk assessments that drive our audit plan, and many of the usual suspects will end up on that plan: cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, financial reporting, third-party relationships, and you Read More