Financial Accounting: Vulnerabilities & Preventive Measures Report

This report examines the common threats to computerized accounting systems, such as security breaches and unethical employee conduct, emphasizing the importance of securing confidential information. It suggests preventive measures like installing firewalls and implementing emergency backup systems in geographically diverse locations to mitigate data threats. The report further discusses vulnerabilities of computer systems to virus attacks, hacking, and malware via USB keys, detailing how hackers exploit system weaknesses. It highlights the potential for fraud related to accruals and the necessity of robust security protocols. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a range of study tools and solved assignments for students.

Running head: FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
Financial Accounting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note
Course ID

1FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
Table of Contents
Two preventive measures or remedies of protecting the computer accounting system:............2
Vulnerability of computer system and fraud with accruals:......................................................2
References:.................................................................................................................................4

2FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
Two preventive measures or remedies of protecting the computer accounting system:
The most common threats to the computer accounting system is the breach of security
and unethical conduct of employees. The computer accounting system comprises of the
confidential information that must be kept in the secure and safe every time. When there is
change in the accounting data or deletion of the data it can result in chaos in the accounting
department (Patti & Lamberg, 2014). This ultimately raises the question of reliability or
accuracy of all the data. This can be regarded as frustrating for those that are engaged in the
system and it is necessary to have the measures of security in place to prevent the breach in
security.
The security breaches comprise of the virus and worms. The breach in security result
in direct hacking of accounting data. There may be instances where an unauthorized access to
the computer system and attaching of virus through email and other accounting files might
get transmitted through electronic system. This may ultimately create an interference with the
program codes of accounting system.
The preventive measures that can be taken to protect and mitigate the negative effect
on the accounting system by installing the firewalls for protecting the internal traffic and
restricting the internal access (Bergemann, 2017). This would ultimately result in preventing
the illegal access of accounting data. Relating to the data protection concerns the accounting
system should be designed in the such a manner that it must have the emergency system of
backup for different geographical location to help in preventing the threat of data.
Vulnerability of computer system and fraud with accruals:
Computer systems are vulnerable to virus attack. A computer can be hacked by the
virus infection that may come from the web download drive. There may be instances where
the cyber species may express interest in large number of people inside the large group, they

3FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
can target the website that are used by the company or by group. The hackers might look for
the vulnerability on the website or might access through the spear phishing (Enomoto et al.,
2015). They may implant a piece of code in the website so that whenever a person comes on
the website their data might be infected immediately. This can be regarded as the tactics that
is gaining popularity and one of the common way of targeting dissidents.
Another way a company’s data may be vulnerable to attack is the USB key malware.
These Malware get in the computer with the help of USB key (Kottomtharayil, 2014). For
example, a person may slide the infected USB key in the packets that was given out during
the conference. Once the unsuspected person plugs the USB key in their machine the
malware is installed. Furthermore, the hackers can scan the networks for vulnerability in a
remote manner and once the vulnerability is exploited they can send the command or the data
to the server that might result the application to crash or start execution of code.

4FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
References:
Bergemann, B. (2017, September). The Consent Paradox: Accounting for the Prominent Role
of Consent in Data Protection. In IFIP International Summer School on Privacy and
Identity Management (pp. 111-131). Springer, Cham.
Enomoto, M., Kimura, F., & Yamaguchi, T. (2015). Accrual-based and real earnings
management: An international comparison for investor protection. Journal of
Contemporary Accounting & Economics, 11(3), 183-198.
Kottomtharayil, R. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,769,048. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
Patti, J. G., & Lamberg, M. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,856,530. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office.