The AICPA issued its annual ranking of the 10
technologies most likely to significantly affect practitioners, their
clients and their employers in the coming year (
http://infotech.aicpa.org/resources/top++10+technologies/ ). For
the first time, the AICPA invited members of ISACA to join the AICPA
Information Technology (IT) section members and Certified Information
Technology Professional (CITP) credential holders in the
voting. Heading the list for the fourth consecutive year was
information security—the use of hardware, software and processes to
protect an organization’s data. It was followed by assurance and
compliance applications (that, for example, help companies comply with
Sarbanes-Oxley and manage enterprise risk); disaster recovery and
business-continuity-planning processes; IT governance methodologies;
privacy management procedures; digital identity and authentication
processes; wireless communication technologies; application and data
integration techniques; paperless digital technologies; and
“antispyware” applications, which detect and remove programs
attempting to covertly gather and transmit confidential data.
The Institute and ISACA also entered into an agreement under which the CITP credential will be granted automatically to all CPAs who are AICPA members and also hold ISACA’s Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) credential. CPA/CISAs who wish to obtain the CITP credential under this agreement should visit http://infotech.aicpa.org/memberships/CPA.CISA+application.htm , where they can download the streamlined CPA/CISA application.