Information Security in Corporate Valuation

What do you look at when considering the corporate valuation of a company?  Chief financial officers pour over spreadsheets, public filings and much more to get a temperature so they can inform investors, boards and others in the decision making process.  Where is Information security in this discussion?  Who is the chairman of the board's audit committee and how comprehensive are the details and reports?  How accurate and truthful are these reports and details?  Who is the chairman of the technology committee and are his/her reports accurate, timely and reflective of the needs of the company to support the basic operations of the company.

Whether your a big box company like Target, credit card processor like Hartland Payment Systems or just one of the largest email giants like YAHOO!  these and many other questions have to be answered, accurately, timely and honestly and yes, sometimes even painfully.

We have all read in the news that VERIZON is on the path to make an offer to Yahoo! with finalization next year and this latest exposure is certainly going to figure large into pricing.  Verizon

will pay a competitive price, but will not buy based on a hunch.  They will skillfully look at every single part of the Yahoo! digital empire and figure out just how much work will be needed to mend the broken system.  Information security practice will loom large as the price for Yahoo! could potentially shrink.  Information security is going to have to push its way into the board room and profit center discussions.  If not the corporate valuation is just not honest and leaves a lot to be desired when looking at the totality of the circumstances concerning corporate valuation.  Assessing a computer environment can be a very straight forward business.  But what we're seeing are limitations put on security professionals or very narrow scoping of projects which is shaving away a more wholesome look into the entire computer enterprise.  This is just a delaying tactic which is putting off the unavoidable.  Auditing should be ongoing quarter to quarter, year to year and used in helping to set budgets for the out years.  Audit chairs should be apart of the internal profit center discussions and everyone should be mindful of function over feature creep without warranted information security checks prior to implementation.  The sales guys are going to have to get involved in security the environment which they play a critical role in.

Integris Security is your trusted IT Security team that can help you as we provide tailored, high quality security solutions based on industry best practices and our principals combined experience of more than eighty years.  Call us for an appointment and free consultation.