Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Using COBIT and Open Source Tools

by Christian B Lahti, Roderick Peterson

Overview

This book illustrates the many Open Source cost savings opportunities available to companies seeking Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. It also provides examples of the Open Source infrastructure components that can and should be made compliant. In addition, the book clearly documents which Open Source tools you should consider using in the journey towards compliance. Although many books and reference material have been authored on the financial and business side of Sox compliance, very little material is available that directly address the information technology considerations, even less so on how Open Source fits into that discussion.

Each chapter begins with an analysis of the business and technical ramifications of Sarbanes-Oxley as regards to topics covered before moving into the detailed instructions on the use of the various Open Source applications and tools relating to the compliance objectives.

• Shows companies how to use Open Source tools to achieve SOX compliance, which dramatically lowers the cost of using proprietary, commercial applications
• Only SOX compliance book specifically detailing steps to achieve SOX compliance for IT Professionals

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780080489674
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	10/07/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	450
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Christian Lahti is a computer services consultant and an expert in security. He is a regular speaker at industry shows such as LinuxWorld and OSCON. He is the technical editor of Windows to Linux Migration Toolkit (Syngress, ISBN: 1931836396).
Roderick Peterson is the Information Technology Director at NeoMagic. He has more than 20 yeras' experience in the IT industry and has successfully led the development and deployment of major applications at several global companies.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Overview: The Goals of This Book

Chapter 2: SOX and COBIT Defined

Chapter 3: The Cost of Compliance

Chapter 4: Why Open Source?

Chapter 5: Domain I: Planning and Organization

Chapter 6: Domain II: Acquisition and Implementation

Chapter 7: Domain III: Delivery and Support

Chapter 8: Domain IV: Monitoring

Chapter 9: Putting It All Together

Appendix A: COBIT Control Objectives

Appendix B: KNOPPIX Live CD Parameters

Appendix C: The GNU General Public License

Appendix D: CD Contents at a Glance

Index

Editorial Reviews

IT-related Sarbanes-Oxley (and other) compliance initiatives will never be easy or cheap. But the COBIT guidelines and best practices can make it far easier to cover all the bases. And using open source software can help you mitigate the costs of compliance. This book can help with both.

The authors walk through the compliance process using a fictional case study and some very real open source software (including eGroupware, Zabbix monitoring, Knowledge Tree document management, Fedora Directory, and Webmin. This software -- along with the enterprise-class CentOS Linux distribution -- is all provided on disk, as the "ITSox2 Toolkit."

You'll find guidance on defining and managing policies; setting and enforcing service levels; ensuring security; implementing clear workflows; identifying and remediating compliance gaps; and much more. Along the way, the authors share diverse stakeholder perspectives, offering valuable insight for achieving compliance from both business and technical viewpoints. Bill Camarda, from the February 2008 Read Only