Annotated bibliography
Reckers, P. (2002). Advances in Accounting. Burlington: Elsevier.
Trust in both the accountant and the platform he/she is using, has to be maintained for an accounting practice to be considered credible. (Reckers, 2002 p. 122)
A good and credible accounting process has to have features such as; Ability to produce accounts at a short notice; should provide audit trail; Compatibility with external. Programmes; able to detect error; should enable internal controls to be integrated into it (Reckers, 2002 p. 122)
Easttom, C., & Taylor, J. (2011). Computer crime, investigation, and the law. Boston, MA:
This book elaborates on the characteristics of a good accounting system and goes on to state that an accounting system must enable internal controls to be set in it in order for it to qualify as a credible and reliable accounting system. It explains further that the employment of technology in accounting, without discounting its obvious advantages, has increased the level of anxiety over the authenticity of the information produced by it. The constantly changing nature of technology makes it hard to implement controls that will last without the risk of re-configuration. It lists the main ways through which a company may lose its data through a cyber-attack as through virus attacks; these are malicious programmes introduced to the target company systems through the internet and damage existing data files leaving distorted chunks of unusable information. A company might lose their data forever through this way. Through hacking, technologically savvy individuals to gain un-authorized access into the computer systems of a firm and either modify or delete files in these systems.
Quotes from the book that will be used in the research paper
Cloud computing is where companies store their accounting information in remote servers connected to the internet. These servers may suffer an attack causing the company to lose valuable accounting information in the process (Easttom, 2011 p 234).
Cyber warfare is the involvement of firms in a cyber-espionage where one firm steals information from the other firm for purposes of sabotage, gaining an advantage over competition. An example of cyber war targeted at the U.S is the ‘Titan rain’ which involved the coordinated continuous attacks of American computer systems believed to have originated from China. (Easttom, 2011 p 234)
Halpert, B. (2011). Auditing cloud computing: A security and privacy guide. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
This text offers an explanation on the nature of cloud computing and the various services or layers necessary in the provision of this service such as infrastructure, the platform and software employed all being depicted as services and the role they play. The authors go on to explain the various roles each player holds in the process such as the consumers, the providers and the service integrators. On the security of cloud computing, the authors elaborate the audit process and the various control frameworks available for the cloud such as the ENISA Cloud Risk assessment and the Fed RAMP. (Halpert, 2011 p120- 127). Cloud computing is described in the text as to possess various characteristics such as elasticity, multi-tenancy, economics, abstraction and software as a service (SaaS).
Quotes from the text that will be used later in the research paper
As there are a significant amount of resources shared between tenants in a SaaS environment, the ability of one tenant to affect the quality of work of the other tenants is always a concern. (Halpert, 2011 pg6).
Cloud computing is not without its challenges, workloads containing information of a highly sensitive nature (such as accounting information) may not be appropriate for deployment to the cloud. (Halpert, 2011 pg13).
McPhail K. & Walters, D. (2009). Accounting and business ethics: An introduction. London: Routledge.
This text is divided into to two parts both dwelling entirely on the ethics of accounting. The first part handles how to think of business ethically. Handling aspects such as what factors influence the way accountants respond to ethical dilemmas. The author cites the post Enron scandal era as a reference point for how accountants react to ethical dilemmas and goes on to liken the behaviors of accountants with that of other professionals and draw the conclusion of the fallibility accountants are vulnerable to just like any other individuals. (McPhail, pg17)
Arnold, V. (2011). Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research: Vol. 14. Bradford: Emerald Group Pub.
Quotes from the test that will be used in the research paper
The machines and systems used should be reliable and tamper proof. (Arnold, 2011 pg276)
An accounting system must pass the test of verifiability in order to be considered credible, cloud computing blurs the verifiability of such accounting records. (Arnold, 2011 pg299)
Snoeyenbos, M., Almeder, R. F., & Humber, J. M. (2001). Business ethics. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.
Quotes from the text that will be used later in the research paper
The employment of technology tends to provide fraudulent accounting personnel with the scapegoat of malfunctioning systems as an explanation for their incomplete work or incorrect representation of financial information in the accounting reports. (Snoeyenbos, 2001 p.114)
References
McPhail K. & Walters, D. (2009). Accounting and business ethics: An introduction. London: Routledge.
Arnold, V. (2011). Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research: Vol. 14. Bradford: Emerald Group Pub.
Easttom, C., & Taylor, J. (2011). Computer crime, investigation, and the law. Boston, MA: Course Technology.
Reckers, P. (2002). Advances in Accounting. Burlington: Elsevier.
Snoeyenbos, M., Almeder, R. F., & Humber, J. M. (2001). Business ethics. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.
Halpert, B. (2011). Auditing cloud computing: A security and privacy guide. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.
