COBIT 4.0: Major Update to
International Standard
Helps Businesses Increase IT
Value, Decrease Risk
Rolling
Meadows, IL, USA (14 December 2005)—The IT Governance Institute (ITGI) will
release on 16 December a significant update of Control Objectives for Information and related
Technology (COBIT), an internationally accepted IT governance
framework used by major companies worldwide. COBIT provides an authoritative, international
set of generally accepted practices that help boards of directors, executives
and managers increase the value of IT and reduce related risks.
“Executives
realize the significant impact information has on the success of their
enterprises and the increasing governance responsibility they possess to ensure
that success,” said Erik
Guldentops, CISA, CISM, a management consultant in
Brussels, Belgium, and a
member of the COBIT development team since inception.
“The new edition of
COBIT provides
good practices and links upward to support the IT governance requirements of
executives and boards, while also linking downward to address the more detailed
requirements of those responsible for solution and service delivery. This
provides further support to optimize IT investments, ensure value delivery and
mitigate IT risk in a transparent manner.”
Although
COBIT is also widely used as a tool for
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance, its earlier editions pre-date much of the
current control legislation, including SOX. It is a product of more than 10
years of research and cooperation among global IT and business experts, and is
available as an open standard at
www.isaca.org/cobit.
The new
edition—COBIT 4.0—provides a stronger business focus to
address the evolving responsibilities of boards and employees. COBIT 4.0 marks the first major update of the
COBIT core content since the release of
COBIT 3rd Edition in 2000. The first
edition was published in 1994. Case studies of COBIT implementations at major international
organizations, such as Unisys, Sun Microsystems and the US House of
Representatives, are available at
www.isaca.org/cobitcasestudies.
“COBIT 4.0 does not look like an academic tome;
there is useful material on every page,” said Christopher Fox, ACA. “It has the
potential to be a document that will be dog-eared and well
used.”
COBIT 4.0 includes guidance for boards of
directors and all levels of management. It consists of four
sections:
·
The executive overview
·
The framework
·
The core content (control objectives,
management guidelines and maturity models)
·
Appendices (mappings, cross-references and a
glossary)
The core content is divided
according to the 34 IT process and gives a complete picture of how to control,
manage and measure each process.
In addition,
COBIT 4.0:
·
Analyzes how the detailed control objectives
can be mapped to the five IT governance domains to identify potential
gaps
·
Harmonizes and maps COBIT to other standards (ITIL, CMM, COSO, PMBOK,
ISF and ISO 17799)
·
Clarifies key goal indicator (KGI) and key
performance indicator (KPI) relationships, identifying how KPIs drive the
achievement of KGIs
·
Links business goals, IT goals and IT
processes (detailed research in eight industries results in a clearer insight
into how COBIT processes support the achievement of
specific IT goals and, by extension, business goals)
COBIT 4.0 replaces the third edition components
Executive Summary, Framework, Control
Objectives and Management Guidelines. Work is underway to
address Audit Guidelines. The introduction of
COBIT 4.0 does not invalidate work done with
COBIT 3rd Edition, but provides the
opportunity to build on that work and further improve IT governance and control
arrangements, where appropriate.
Much of COBIT is available for complimentary download at
www.isaca.org/cobit. Print
copies can be purchased at the ISACA Bookstore (www.isaca.org/bookstore)
for
US $190. A complimentary webcast offering an
in-depth look at COBIT 4.0 is available at
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/isaca/view.
About COBIT
COBIT® (Control
Objectives for Information and related
Technology®),
issued by ITGI, is internationally accepted as good practice
for control over information, IT and related risks. COBIT is used to
implement governance over IT and improve IT controls. It contains control
objectives, audit guidelines, performance and outcome metrics, critical success
factors and maturity models.
The IT Governance Institute® (ITGI) (www.itgi.org) was established in 1998 to advance international thinking and standards in directing and controlling an enterprise’s information technology. Effective IT governance helps ensure that IT supports business goals, optimizes business investment in IT, and appropriately manages IT-related risks and opportunities. The IT Governance Institute developed Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) and offers original research and case studies to assist enterprise leaders and boards of directors in their IT governance responsibilities.
Kristen Bertholomey, +1.847.590.7455, kbertholomey@itgi.org
Deborah Vohasek, +1.847.590.7466, dvohasek@itgi.org
IT Governance Institute
3701 Algonquin Road, Suite 1010
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
USA