Information technology (IT) auditing collects and evaluates data pertaining to an IT infrastructure. An IT audit may augment a financial audit, but it is specifically designed to test the IT infrastructure’s accuracy, efficiency, and security. Though around since the 1960s, IT audits have become especially important in the 21st century, when so much of a business’s activity is conducted or assisted electronically.

The first IT audits were necessitated by the use of electronics in accounting systems. Early computers did little more than that-compute-and the combination of their expense with their extraordinarily narrow focus of applications meant that they were adopted slowly. Though General Electric used a computerized accounting system in 1954, computer use was a highly specialized skill, and early input methods (such as punch cards or paper tape) were tedious to error-check.

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