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Chapter 14
COMPUTER SYSTEM CONTROLS
1. Types of control activities
There are two broad groupings of control activities in information processing
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General IT controls
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Application controls
General IT controls
include controls over the access to the computer and its records, the 
development of programs, prevention of unauthorised changes to systems, maintaining backup files, 
antivirus programs and firewall defences. Such controls are 'general' because they support many 
applications (eg inventory management, payroll processing, trade receivables, etc).
It is probably worth pointing out at this stage the dangers that are inherent in poor development or 
unauthorised changes in programs. For example if I wanted to commit a fraud through the salary 
system, there are two ways. First I could change my salary (ie change data) so that every time I was 
paid, I would be paid too much. That’s an easy but very obvious way of committing a fraud. The 
second way is to change the salaries program so that when my personnel number is being processed, 
my salary is increased. That needs a simple ‘if – then’ statement: if my personnel number then increase 
salary by, say, 25%. Numerically that will work just as well, but will be a 'better' fraud because it will be 
much more difficult to detect how it was done.
Although this has been dramatised using fraud, the greater potential of improperly authorised 
program changes lies in simple mistakes. If you alter a program, for example, the wages and salary 
income tax calculations or the VAT calculations, so the amounts of tax are incorrectly calculated, then 
the organisation can be liable for very large penalty payments to the tax authorities.