PCAOB Endorses COBIT?

"It is the framework which changes with each new technology and not just the picture within the frame."

Marshall McLuhan, Canadian Philosopher

Sarbanes-Oxley compliance will have a significant impact on the IT organization of most public companies. However, there is one enormous problem: there is no specific mention of IT in section 404 More importantly, there are no specifics given as to what controls have to be established within an IT organization in order to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.

If there is no specific mention in section 404 as to what IT needs to do in order to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, then the logical question would be, "How can I comply with something without knowing what I need to do to comply?" Although there are various standards that a company can use for defining and documenting their internal controls ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), Six Sigma and COBIT, based on the endorsement of the PCAOB, the standard that the majority of auditors have adopted is COBIT. We will now define ITIL, Six Sigma, and COBIT.

ITIL is an international series of documents used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. The intent of the framework is to define how ServiceManagement is applied within specific organizations. Given that the framework consists of guidelines, it is agnostic of any application or platform and can therefore be applied in any organization.

Six Sigma, at many organizations, simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection.