United States General Accounting Office

Computer Related Crimes in Federal Programs United States General Accounting Office

In recent years, a new type of criminal has appeared-the computer criminal. Well-publicized crimes have demonstrated that computer-based systems are vulnerable to criminal activity, and hundreds of computer-related crimes have been detected. The dollar value of reported computer related bank embezzlement's, for example, ranged from about $1,000 to almost $7 million. Faced with the possibility of such activity in Government, we reviewed computer-related crimes in Government organizations. Since we promulgate Federal accounting and auditing standards and work with other levels of government to help improve their standards and procedures, our objectives in this review were to: --Determine whether computer-related crimes are occurring in Government. --Relate methods used by computer criminals to weaknesses in controls in the systems in which they committed the crimes. --Examine the internal audit procedures used to review the operations affected by the crimes to determine whether changes in audit procedures, standards, or guidelines are needed. --Identify ways to help prevent and detect future crimes.