Silent guardians: The unremarked role of IT auditors

The Central Bank of Nigeria's "Mass Burial" on 16 January 1998 revoked the licenses of twenty-six banks, marking the collapse of thirty-four institutions as insolvent. Depositors were ruined, and the sector was in turmoil. However, the most concealed threat was cybercrime, which went unnoticed by the public. Nigerian banks were hastily computerized throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, inadvertently generating a vulnerable opening without proper security measures in place.

The IT personnel lacked the necessary system security hygiene, making their work blind to the hidden world of computerized systems. This oversight led to the eruption of computer frauds, resulting in capital funds and customer deposits vanishing without accountability. The IT auditors, who cultivated and spread expertise across Nigeria's professional community, equipped auditors to use digital forensic techniques to interrogate 100% of an institution's transactions.

EDP Audit & Security Associates used this knowledge to detect hidden irregularities, recovering over US$110 million for a top bank. As a result, major banks adopted ACL and engaged EDP Audit & Security Associates, shifting the focus from auditing around the computer to auditing decisively through it. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation engaged the team to train their internal auditors and bank examiners.

This expertise spread through ISACA certifications and EDP Tecknowledge programs, becoming a structural obligation of the profession. IT auditors were crucial in stabilizing the sector and the economy. The solution today is not just technological acquisition, but a disciplined professional transformation, demanding auditors to understand AI systems, data, and decision logic to penetrate their interiority.