Input Controls

Introduction (1)

In today’s society we access and give out so much of our personal information just by using our fingertips and performing a few keystrokes on our laptops, personal computers and even cellular phones. When I go online and log into my Wells Fargo bank account as a bank customer I want the satisfaction of knowing that my personal information is being secured by Wells Fargo. As an online bank customer it’s imperative to me that I can rest assured that Wells Fargo has implemented the necessary input controls so that my information can’t be accessed by someone who isn’t authorized to do so. Input control includes the necessary measures to ensure that input date is correct, complete, and secure. When implementing a system input control must be focused on during every phase of input design, starting with source documents that promote data accuracy and quality (Rosenblatt & Shelly, 2012). Some examples of input controls are audit trails, encryption, password security, and data security.

Example of Input Controls and Data Integrity Errors (2)

During the input design phase implementing an audit trail can track every piece of information traceable back to the input data that produced it. An audit trail records the source of each data item and when it entered the system (Rosenblatt & Shelly, 2012). An audit trail not only is limited to recording of the original source. An audit trail will also show how and when data was changed and who the responsible person was that made the change. This information is logged into an audit trail file and is monitored. A data integrity error that can occur without having an audit trail in place is if someone makes an unauthorized change on a network switch. One of the switch ports connects to a server in which an application is used by thousands of employees and this change impacts that application. If there isn’t an audit trail input control configured then no one will know who made this change....