IS Security and Risk Management: Telstra Corporation Ltd

This report discusses the risk and security management of Telstra Corporation Ltd, a telecommunications company in Australia. It covers their products and services, general management controls, application controls, techniques for risk management, and audit plan and process.

Running head: IS SECURITY AND RISK MANAGEMENT
IS Security and Risk Management: Telstra Corporation Ltd
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
1. Products and Services of Telstra and Proper Use of Information System.........................3
2. General Management Controls of Telstra Corporation......................................................4
3. Application Controls of Telstra Corporation.....................................................................5
4. Comparison of ACs and GMCs for Information System...................................................6
5. Evaluation of Few Techniques for Risk Management.......................................................6
6. Audit Plan and Audit Process in Telstra Corporation........................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The information system can be defined as the structured structure that helps to
assemble, systematize, accumulate and correspond with the confidential data (Laudon &
Laudon, 2016). It is the amalgamation of various complementary networks, which
organizations and people utilize for the major purposes of collection, filtering, processing,
creating as well as distributing the data. The information system is the major component that
helps to interact for the successful production of information (Bajdor & Grabara, 2014).
Various software, hardware, business procedures, functionalities and data that could be
utilized for increasing the efficiency and management of any particular organization are
present within the information system. This information system is completely automatic and
hence could be used without any type of manual working procedure. It comprises of a
computerized database and has restricted sensors that help in easy information storage. The
various operations, decision making and management of the confidential data are much easier
with the presence of information system (Demir & Krajewski, 2013). Moreover, information
system has the interrelation with the data systems and could easily complete the activities in
lesser time.
The following report provides a brief discussion on the risk and security management
on the popular and significant organization of telecommunications within Australia, namely,
Telstra Corporation Ltd. This organization provides various telecommunication and
broadband services for its customers and information system services for the employees. The
report even explains the proper ideology of general management controls and application
controls with several techniques of risk management, used by them.

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Discussion
1. Products and Services of Telstra and Proper Use of Information System
Telstra Corporation Limited or Telstra is considered as the largest
telecommunications organization within Australia that could easily build as well as operate
the networks of telecommunications and the mobile services, internet access, broadband
services, pay television, market voices and several other products or services (Telstra., 2018).
This particular organization was founded 43 years ago and it has its headquarters in
Melbourne, Australia. Since, this is an important and popular organization, Telstra has
numerous customers worldwide. This particular organization is following several unique
strategies within the business. A complete range of the communication services is provided
by this organization and hence they are competing in each and every telecommunication
market. In Australia, they are providing retail mobile services to 17.7 million customers,
retail fixed broadband services to 3.6 million clients as well as fixed voice services to 4.9
million clients (Telstra., 2018). They have kept customers’ choices on top priority and this is
another important strategy of this organization.
Due to the business processes of the Telstra Corporation Ltd are extremely unique in
respect to the other telecommunication organization (Telstra., 2018). Thus, the result of the
business procedures is bringing several asset values within the business. A brilliant connected
future is the ultimate goal of this company. The services of broadband and Internet are
improvised with the help of this system. The marketing department of this organization is
doing their work perfectly and hence they have implemented information system and thus the
departments could easily be connected with one another (Kushniruk et al., 2013). The
transaction processing system is the major requirement in the organization of Telstra
Corporation Limited. The accounting and production departments are perfectly controlled by

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taking the help of IS within this organization. Moreover, the services of this organization are
extremely cost effective and hence could be easily afforded.
2. General Management Controls of Telstra Corporation
The GMCs is defined as the total managerial functions that comprise of the major
objectives of achieving several goals of the organization in the given time (Alonso et al.,
2013). These general management controls are responsible for helping to gather and use the
sensitive and the most relevant data and information with the major purpose of evaluating the
complete performances of all the organizational resources such as finance related and even
the physical resources. The several strategies of the company could be subsequently deployed
or implemented within the business processes with the general management control (Tarhini,
Arachchilage & Abbasi, 2015). The entire procedure of managing the business eventually
includes the best performance getting compared with the performances, as per planned. The
second factor of implementing general management control is that it is different from the
other controls in the aspect that it could be measured even before the contributions. The
respective final step in the entire procedure is that the identified differences are easily
measured for the perfect minimization of these dissimilarities. There are two distinct kinds of
errors in the GMCs, which would be preventive control as well as detective control (Brooks,
2016). These preventive controls help in prevention of the errors and these controls could
cease the errors. The respective detective controls could be utilized to perfectly identify the
irregularities within the processes.
Telstra Corporation Ltd has implemented the GMCs in their business. Since, it is a
telecommunications company, these types of controls are mandatory for them. The three
important factors, which could easily enhance general management controls of the company,
are regularized standard sets, evaluation of complete performance and finally undertaking the

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right actions (Al-Sakran, 2015). The most prominent general management controls of the
organization of Telstra are listed below:
i) Presence of Legal Laws: Several legalized laws and rules are being implemented
within the organization for ceasing any type of illegal activity.
ii) Data Integrity: There is integrity within the data and hence data is never lost in
Telstra (Dahlstrom, Walker & Dziuban, 2013).
iii) Presence of Safe Guards: The resources are kept secured with the help of various
types of safe guards in the organization and thus Telstra is extremely safe and secured.
3. Application Controls of Telstra Corporation
The second type of control is the application control. This particular type of control is
responsible to maintain the security as well as privacy of all the assets within the business
(Eason, 2014). This type of security maintenance helps in providing reliability and
confidentiality in the business and hence information could be easily protected. The data risks
are also reduced to a higher level. The application controls of Telstra Corporation Ltd are
listed below:
i) Complete Checking: The organization is able to check each and every records and
applications of the business.
ii) Validity Checking: This particular AC is responsible for justifying the fact that
only valid data is being processed by the information system (Bilbao-Osorio, Dutta &
Lanvin, 2013).
iii) Presence of Authentication: The authenticated information is only processed
within the organization.

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iv) Input Control: Telstra also controls the inputs and hence the data is kept secured
easily.
v) Presence of Authentication: Telstra makes sure that only authorized people could
access the confidential data (Marchewka, 2014).
vi) Easy Identification: These authorized people could be easily identified by taking
the help of this particular application control within Telstra Corporation Ltd.
4. Comparison of ACs and GMCs for Information System
The proper comparison amongst the GMCs as well as ACs in the specific information
system of Telstra Corporation Ltd is being listed below:
i) The general management controls within the company are linked with the
application controls and hence each and every functionality could be easily supported by this
type of link (Holtshouse, 2013). The general management controls could easily manage the
end user, main frame and server.
ii) These application controls could easily control the security and even the privacy of
this information system by simply controlling or managing the software or transactions.
There are some of the major factors that are completely dependent on the application controls
like complete checking, validity checking, input controls, authentication, authorization and
various others (Bloom et al., 2014). The several organizational resources could be easily and
promptly managed or controlled by the general management control and hence these controls
are absolutely dependent on the standardized sets, evaluation of the complete performances
and undertaking the appropriate actions.
5. Evaluation of Few Techniques for Risk Management
a) Reliability, Confidentiality, Availability, Integrity and Security

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Risk management is the proper identification, evaluation as well as prioritization of
various risks and threats that is followed by the economical and coordinated applications of
several resources for the minimization, management and control of the impact and probability
of any type of unfortunate events (Lloyd, 2017). The opportunities are highly maximized
with the help of this risk management.
Telstra Corporation Ltd has implemented various new techniques to manage the risks
in their business. Hence, they have become successful with these techniques of risk
management. The destruction of this organizational resources or confidential data is properly
stopped by the proper implementation and deployment of risk management techniques
(Schwalbe, 2015). There are five specific factors and these could be measured by the two
techniques of risk management. These five factors would be integrity, confidentiality,
reliability, security and finally availability. Following are the given two popular and mportant
techniques for managing the threats and maintaining the above-mentioned five specific
factors in this organization of Telstra Corporation Ltd.
i) Deterrence of Loss of Data: It is termed as the most vital and significant tool and
technique to manage risk. The sensitive information are always susceptible to the several
types of risks (Luftman et al., 2013). This specific technique makes sure that these losses can
be easily prevented as well as the data could be stored properly in this information system.
ii) Avoidance of the Risks: The second important and significant technique for the
proper management of the risks is the respective risk avoidance (Oztaysi, 2014). This specific
type of avoidance could be highly advantageous for the privacy of the confidential data or
information present within the information system.
These above two above mentioned techniques for risk management are important for
maintaining integrity, confidentiality, reliability, security and finally availability.

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b) Risk Identification, Assessment and Controls
Risk identification is absolutely vital for the proper recognition of the several risks
that are present within the organizational information system. This also helps to assess and
control these risks. Telstra Corporation Ltd has deployed two specific techniques for
identifying, assessing as well as controlling the risks (Alwahaishi & Snásel, 2013). Following
are the two techniques of risk management for managing risks and hence maintaining all the
above-mentioned factors within Telstra Corporation Ltd.
i) Loss Reduction: This is the first technique that would be effective for the
minimization of loss, which makes sure that all of these data losses that have been occurred
by the several risks are minimized to a greater level.
ii) Separation: The several devastation risks are recognized easily with this specific
risk management technique and thus Telstra Corporation Ltd gains competitive advantages
(Bloom et al., 2014).
The above mentioned two techniques are extremely popular and significant for any
type of risk management and thus the various risks are easily mitigated.
6. Audit Plan and Audit Process in Telstra Corporation
The audit is defined as an authorized assessment of all the accounts within any
specific organization to properly verify whether each and every organizational resource is
being used securely or not and even if these are used, whether only the authorized and
authenticated users are using them or not (Dahlstrom, Walker & Dziuban, 2013). This type of
systematic or independent testing of all the records as well as maintenance of the integrity
and confidentiality of information is known as auditing.

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Telstra Corporation Ltd has systematically and successfully audited the various
resources by their excellent audit planning. This particular audit plan was responsible for
helping them in achieving the success and advantages that they have achieved now (Tarhini,
Arachchilage & Abbasi, 2015). Without this audit planning, it was not at possible for them to
achieve success easily. The respective audit plan of Telstra Corporation is listed below:
i) Identification of Audit Requirements: At first the audit requirements are to be
identified properly.
ii) Listing the Requirements of Report: The second factor in this audit plan is that the
various requirements of the report are to be listed properly.
iii) Conflicts between the Interest Assessments: The third factor of this audit plan is
that they try to resolve the conflicts between the interest assessments (Demir & Krajewski,
2013).
iv) Executing Perfect Risk Assessment: Another significant factor of the audit plan is
that there is a proper execution plan of the perfect risk assessments. This helps in reducing
the risks to a greater level.
v) Assessment of Resource and Record: The final factor of this audit plan is that
there is a significant assessment of the resources as well as records (Laudon & Laudon,
2016).
The process of audit helps to determine the entire procedure of the audit execution..
This specific process of audit of the Telstra Corporation Ltd is listed below:
i) Discussion of Scopes and Objectives: The first step in this audit process is that they
discuss the several scopes as well as objectives of the company.

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ii) Proper Data Collection: The next step in this audit process is that they completes
the data collection procedure properly.
iii) Evaluation of Various Internal Controls: The several significant internal controls
are properly evaluated in this particular step of this audit process (Bajdor & Grabara, 2014).
iv) Execution of Plan: Finally, in the last step of this audit process, the specific plan
is being executed properly.
These above mentioned steps help the organization of Telstra Corporation Ltd to
achieve proper success in the business and even they could inspect or check the resources that
are vital for the organization. Hence, data theft is easily and properly avoided.
Conclusion
Therefore, from this above provided report, it could be eventually concluded that an
information system would be the basic collection of several pieces of equipment that are
being included within the distribution of information. The most significant and important
parts of this information system are hardware, software, computerized database, users of
information system, connections as well as networks. All of these together constitute the
successful information system. Various kinds of information systems are present for the
organizations in the world. The most common kinds of the information systems are the
operation support system like transaction processing system, management information
systems, decision support system and executive support system. It is the necessary computer
system; however it describes the telephone switching as well as environmental controlling
system. It eve involves the shared resources and processed information with the people, who
are managing this system. These people are then considered as the major parts of the system
without these IT experts, the information systems could not operate properly. The several

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information systems completely depend on the requirement of designing to fill. The decision
making process is easily executed by taking the exclusive help of an information system and
thus is quite popular for all types of organizations, especially the software companies. This
information system is the noteworthy subset of ICT or information and communications
technology. The above has properly explained the importance of an information system for
the famous telecommunication company, Telstra Corporation Ltd. Relevant details regarding
the GMCs as well as ACs or the risk management techniques are properly described in this
report. The final part of the report has stated the audit plan an audit process of Telstra.
The best recommendation for Telstra is that they should implement decision support
system within their business. The decision support system is responsible for taking proper
and suitable decisions for the organization after considering the strengths and weaknesses of
that particular organization.

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