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CISA—Certified Information Systems Auditor - Part 4

Mary Smith

Fri, 17 Apr 2026

CISA—Certified Information Systems Auditor - Part 4

1. Which of the following audit is mainly designed to evaluate the internal control structure in a given process or area?

A) Compliance Audit
B) Financial Audit
C) Operational Audit
D) Forensic audit



2. Which of the following audit combines financial and operational audit steps?

A) Compliance Audit
B) Financial Audit
C) Integrated Audit
D) Forensic audit



3. Which of the following audit mainly focuses on discovering and disclosing on frauds and crimes?

A) Compliance Audit
B) Financial Audit
C) Integrated Audit
D) Forensic audit



4. Which of the following audit risk is related to exposure of a process or entity to be audited without taking into account the control that management has implemented?

A) Inherent Risk
B) Control Risk
C) Detection Risk
D) Overall Audit Risk



5. Which of the following audit risk is related to material error exist that would not be prevented or detected on timely basis by the system of internal controls?

A) Inherent Risk
B) Control Risk
C) Detection Risk
D) Overall Audit Risk



1. Right Answer: C
Explanation: Operational audit is mainly designed to evaluate the internal control structure in a given process or area. Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities. In Operational audit financial data may be used, but the primary sources of evidence are the operational policies and achievements related to organizational objectives.Operational audit is a more comprehensive form of an Internal audit.For your exam you should know below information about different types of audit:What is an audit?An audit in general terms is a process of evaluating an individual or organization's accounts. This is usually done by an independent auditing body. Thus, audit involves a competent and independent person obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively with regard to a given entity, which in this case is the subject of audit, in order to establish conformance to a given set of standards. Audit can be on a person, organization, system, enterprise, project or product.Compliance Audit -A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.What, precisely, is examined in a compliance audit will vary depending upon whether an organization is a public or private company, what kind of data it handles and if it transmits or stores sensitive financial data. For instance, SOX requirements mean that any electronic communication must be backed up and secured with reasonable disaster recovery infrastructure. Health care providers that store or transmit e-health records, like personal health information, are subject to HIPAA requirements. Financial services companies that transmit credit card data are subject to PCI DSS requirements. In each case, the organization must be able to demonstrate compliance by producing an audit trail, often generated by data from event log management software.Financial Audit -A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Operational Audit -Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities. In Operational audit financial data may be used, but the primary sources of evidence are the operational policies and achievements related to organizational objectives. Operational audit is a more comprehensive form of an Internal audit.The Institute of Internal Auditor (IIA) defines Operational Audit as a systematic process of evaluating an organization's effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operations under management's control and reporting to appropriate persons the results of the evaluation along with recommendations for improvement.Objectives -To appraise the effectiveness and efficiency of a division, activity, or operation of the entity in meeting organizational goals.To understand the responsibilities and risks faced by an organization.To identify, with management participation, opportunities for improving control.To provide senior management of the organization with a detailed understanding of the Operations.Integrated Audits -An integrated audit combines financial and operational audit steps. An integrated audit is also performed to assess overall objectives within an organization, related to financial information and asset, safeguarding, efficiency and or internal auditors and would include compliance test of internal controls and substantive audit step.IS Audit -An information technology audit, or information systems audit, is an examination of the management controls within an Information technology (IT) infrastructure.The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating effectively to achieve the organization's goals or objectives. These reviews may be performed in conjunction with a financial statement audit, internal audit, or other form of attestation engagement.The primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the systems that are in place to guard an organization's information. Specifically, information technology audits are used to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and to properly dispense information to authorized parties. The IT audit aims to evaluate the following:Will the organization's computer systems be available for the business at all times when required? (known as availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (known as security and confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely?(measures the integrity) In this way, the audit hopes to assess the risk to the company's valuable asset (its information) and establish methods of minimizing those risks.Forensic Audit -Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative advice.The purpose of a forensic audit is to use accounting procedures to collect evidence for the prosecution or investigation of financial crimes such as theft or fraud.Forensic audits may be conducted to determine if wrongdoing occurred, or to gather materials for the case against an alleged criminal.The following answers are incorrect:Compliance Audit - A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.Financial Audit- A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Forensic Audit - Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative advice.The following reference(s) were/was used to create this question:CISA Review Manual 2014 Page number 44http://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/compliance-audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_auditing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology_audit http://www.investorwords.com/16445/forensic_audit.html

2. Right Answer: C
Explanation: An integrated audit combines financial and operational audit steps. An integrated audit is also performed to assess overall objectives within an organization, related to financial information and asset, safeguarding, efficiency and or internal auditors and would include compliance test of internal controls and substantive audit step.For your exam you should know below information about different types of audit:What is an audit?An audit in general terms is a process of evaluating an individual or organization's accounts. This is usually done by an independent auditing body. Thus, audit involves a competent and independent person obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively with regard to a given entity, which in this case is the subject of audit, in order to establish conformance to a given set of standards. Audit can be on a person, organization, system, enterprise, project or product.Compliance Audit -A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.What, precisely, is examined in a compliance audit will vary depending upon whether an organization is a public or private company, what kind of data it handles and if it transmits or stores sensitive financial data. For instance, SOX requirements mean that any electronic communication must be backed up and secured with reasonable disaster recovery infrastructure. Health care providers that store or transmit e-health records, like personal health information, are subject to HIPAA requirements. Financial services companies that transmit credit card data are subject to PCI DSS requirements. In each case, the organization must be able to demonstrate compliance by producing an audit trail, often generated by data from event log management software.Financial Audit -A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Operational Audit -Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities. In Operational audit financial data may be used, but the primary sources of evidence are the operational policies and achievements related to organizational objectives. Operational audit is a more comprehensive form of an Internal audit.The Institute of Internal Auditor (IIA) defines Operational Audit as a systematic process of evaluating an organization's effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operations under management's control and reporting to appropriate persons the results of the evaluation along with recommendations for improvement.Objectives -To appraise the effectiveness and efficiency of a division, activity, or operation of the entity in meeting organizational goals.To understand the responsibilities and risks faced by an organization.To identify, with management participation, opportunities for improving control.To provide senior management of the organization with a detailed understanding of the Operations.Integrated Audits -An integrated audit combines financial and operational audit steps. An integrated audit is also performed to assess overall objectives within an organization, related to financial information and asset, safeguarding, efficiency and or internal auditors and would include compliance test of internal controls and substantive audit step.IS Audit -An information technology audit, or information systems audit, is an examination of the management controls within an Information technology (IT) infrastructure.The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating effectively to achieve the organization's goals or objectives. These reviews may be performed in conjunction with a financial statement audit, internal audit, or other form of attestation engagement.The primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the systems that are in place to guard an organization's information. Specifically, information technology audits are used to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and to properly dispense information to authorized parties. The IT audit aims to evaluate the following:Will the organization's computer systems be available for the business at all times when required? (known as availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (known as security and confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely?(measures the integrity) In this way, the audit hopes to assess the risk to the company's valuable asset (its information) and establish methods of minimizing those risks.Forensic Audit -Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative advice.The purpose of a forensic audit is to use accounting procedures to collect evidence for the prosecution or investigation of financial crimes such as theft or fraud.Forensic audits may be conducted to determine if wrongdoing occurred, or to gather materials for the case against an alleged criminal.The following answers are incorrect:Compliance Audit - A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.Financial Audit- A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Forensic Audit - Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative advice.The following reference(s) were/was used to create this question:CISA Review Manual 2014 Page number 44http://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/compliance-audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_auditing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology_audit http://www.investorwords.com/16445/forensic_audit.html

3. Right Answer: D
Explanation: Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative adviceFor your exam you should know below information about different types of audit:What is an audit?An audit in general terms is a process of evaluating an individual or organization's accounts. This is usually done by an independent auditing body. Thus, audit involves a competent and independent person obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively with regard to a given entity, which in this case is the subject of audit, in order to establish conformance to a given set of standards. Audit can be on a person, organization, system, enterprise, project or product.Compliance Audit -A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.What, precisely, is examined in a compliance audit will vary depending upon whether an organization is a public or private company, what kind of data it handles and if it transmits or stores sensitive financial data. For instance, SOX requirements mean that any electronic communication must be backed up and secured with reasonable disaster recovery infrastructure. Health care providers that store or transmit e-health records, like personal health information, are subject to HIPAA requirements. Financial services companies that transmit credit card data are subject to PCI DSS requirements. In each case, the organization must be able to demonstrate compliance by producing an audit trail, often generated by data from event log management software.Financial Audit -A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Operational Audit -Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities. In Operational audit financial data may be used, but the primary sources of evidence are the operational policies and achievements related to organizational objectives. Operational audit is a more comprehensive form of an Internal audit.The Institute of Internal Auditor (IIA) defines Operational Audit as a systematic process of evaluating an organization's effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operations under management's control and reporting to appropriate persons the results of the evaluation along with recommendations for improvement.Objectives -To appraise the effectiveness and efficiency of a division, activity, or operation of the entity in meeting organizational goals.To understand the responsibilities and risks faced by an organization.To identify, with management participation, opportunities for improving control.To provide senior management of the organization with a detailed understanding of the Operations.Integrated Audits -An integrated audit combines financial and operational audit steps. An integrated audit is also performed to assess overall objectives within an organization, related to financial information and asset, safeguarding, efficiency and or internal auditors and would include compliance test of internal controls and substantive audit step.IS Audit -An information technology audit, or information systems audit, is an examination of the management controls within an Information technology (IT) infrastructure.The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating effectively to achieve the organization's goals or objectives. These reviews may be performed in conjunction with a financial statement audit, internal audit, or other form of attestation engagement.The primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the systems that are in place to guard an organization's information. Specifically, information technology audits are used to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and to properly dispense information to authorized parties. The IT audit aims to evaluate the following:Will the organization's computer systems be available for the business at all times when required? (known as availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (known as security and confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely?(measures the integrity) In this way, the audit hopes to assess the risk to the company's valuable asset (its information) and establish methods of minimizing those risks.Forensic Audit -Forensic audit is the activity that consists of gathering, verifying, processing, analyzing of and reporting on data in order to obtain facts and/or evidence - in a predefined context - in the area of legal/financial disputes and or irregularities (including fraud) and giving preventative advice.The purpose of a forensic audit is to use accounting procedures to collect evidence for the prosecution or investigation of financial crimes such as theft or fraud.Forensic audits may be conducted to determine if wrongdoing occurred, or to gather materials for the case against an alleged criminal.The following answers are incorrect:Compliance Audit - A compliance audit is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Independent accounting, security or IT consultants evaluate the strength and thoroughness of compliance preparations. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit. Compliance audit include specific tests of controls to demonstrate adherence to specific regulatory or industry standard. These audits often overlap traditional audits, but may focus on particular system or data.Financial Audit- A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion. The audit opinion is intended to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, and/or give a true and fair view in accordance with the financial reporting framework. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increases the value and credibility of the financial statements produced by management, thus increase user confidence in the financial statement, reduce investor risk and consequently reduce the cost of capital of the preparer of the financial statements.Integrated Audits - An integrated audit combines financial and operational audit steps. An integrated audit is also performed to assess overall objectives within an organization, related to financial information and asset, safeguarding, efficiency and or internal auditors and would include compliance test of internal controls and substantive audit step.The following reference(s) were/was used to create this question:CISA Review Manual 2014 Page number 44http://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/compliance-audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_audit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_auditing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology_audit http://www.investorwords.com/16445/forensic_audit.html

4. Right Answer: A
Explanation: Inherent Risk is the risk level or exposure of a process or entity to be audited without taking into account the control that management has implemented. Inherent risk exists independent of an audit and can occur because of the nature of the business.For your exam you should know below information about audit risk:Audit risk (also referred to as residual risk) refers to the risk that an auditor may issue unqualified report due to the auditor's failure to detect material misstatement either due to error or fraud. This risk is composed of inherent risk (IR), control risk (CR) and detection risk (DR), and can be calculated thus:AR = IR Ã? CR Ã? DR -Inherent Risk -Auditors must determine risks when working with clients. One type of risk to be aware of is inherent risk. While assessing this level of risk, you ignore whether the client has internal controls in place (such as a secondary review of financial statements) in order to help mitigate the inherent risk. You consider the strength of the internal controls when assessing the client's control risk. Your job when assessing inherent risk is to evaluate how susceptible the financial statement assertions are to material misstatement given the nature of the client's business. A few key factors can increase inherent risk.Environment and external factors: Here are some examples of environment and external factors that can lead to high inherent risk:Rapid change: A business whose inventory becomes obsolete quickly experiences high inherent risk.Expiring patents: Any business in the pharmaceutical industry also has inherently risky environment and external factors. Drug patents eventually expire, which means the company faces competition from other manufacturers marketing the same drug under a generic label.State of the economy: The general level of economic growth is another external factor affecting all businesses.Availability of financing: Another external factor is interest rates and the associated availability of financing. If your client is having problems meeting its short-term cash payments, available loans with low interest rates may mean the difference between your client staying in business or having to close its doors.Prior-period misstatements: If a company has made mistakes in prior years that weren't material (meaning they weren't significant enough to have to change), those errors still exist in the financial statements. You have to aggregate prior-period misstatements with current year misstatements to see if you need to ask the client to adjust the account for the total misstatement.You may think an understatement in one year compensates for an overstatement in another year. In auditing, this assumption isn't true. Say you work a cash register and one night the register comes up $20 short. The next week, you somehow came up $20 over my draw count. The $20 differences are added together to represent the total amount of your mistakes which is $40 and not zero. Zero would indicate no mistakes at all had occurred.Susceptibility to theft or fraud: If a certain asset is susceptible to theft or fraud, the account or balance level may be considered inherently risky. For example, if a client has a lot of customers who pay in cash, the balance sheet cash account is going to have risk associated with theft or fraud because of the fact that cash is more easily diverted than customer checks or credit card payments.Looking at industry statistics relating to inventory theft, you may also decide to consider the inventory account as inherently risky. Small inventory items can further increase the risk of this account valuation being incorrect because those items are easier to conceal (and therefore easier to steal).Control Risk -Control risk has been defined under International Standards of Auditing (ISAs) as following:The risk that a misstatement that could occur in an assertion about a class of transaction, account balance or disclosure and that could be material, either individually or when aggregated with other misstatements, will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis by the entity's internal control.In simple words control risk is the probability that a material misstatement exists in an assertion because that misstatement was not either prevented from entering entity's financial information or it was not detected and corrected by the internal control system of the entity.It is the responsibility of the management and those charged with governance to implement internal control system and maintain it appropriately which includes managing control risk.There can be many reasons for control risk to arise and why it cannot be eliminated absolutely. But some of them are as follows:Cost-benefit constraints -Circumvention of controls -Inappropriate design of controlsInappropriate application of controlsLack of control environment and accountabilityNovel situations -Outdated controls -Inappropriate segregation of dutiesDetection Risk -Detection Risk is the risk that the auditors fail to detect a material misstatement in the financial statements.An auditor must apply audit procedures to detect material misstatements in the financial statements whether due to fraud or error. Misapplication or omission of critical audit procedures may result in a material misstatement remaining undetected by the auditor. Some detection risk is always present due to the inherent limitations of the audit such as the use of sampling for the selection of transactions.Detection risk can be reduced by auditors by increasing the number of sampled transactions for detailed testing.The following answers are incorrect:Control Risk - The risk that material error exist that would not be prevented or detected on timely basis by the system of internal controls.Detection risk - The risk that material errors or misstatements that have occurred will not be detected by an IS auditor.Overall audit risk - The probability that information or financial report may contain material errors and that the auditor may not detect an error that has occurred. An objective in formulating the audit approach is to limit the audit risk in the area under security so the overall audit risk is at sufficiently low level at the completion of the examination.The following reference(s) were/was used to create this question:CISA review manual 2014 page number 50http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit_riskhttp://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-assess-inherent-risk-in-an-audit.html http://pakaccountants.com/what-is-control-risk/ http://accounting-simplified.com/audit/risk-assessment/audit-risk.html

5. Right Answer: B
Explanation: The risk that material error exist that would not be prevented or detected on timely basis by the system of internal controls. For example, the control risk associated with manual review could be high because activities requiring investigation are often easily missed due to the volume of logged information.For your exam you should know below information about audit risk:Audit risk (also referred to as residual risk) refers to the risk that an auditor may issue unqualified report due to the auditor's failure to detect material misstatement either due to error or fraud. This risk is composed of inherent risk (IR), control risk (CR) and detection risk (DR), and can be calculated thus:AR = IR Ã? CR Ã? DR -Inherent Risk -Auditors must determine risks when working with clients. One type of risk to be aware of is inherent risk. While assessing this level of risk, you ignore whether the client has internal controls in place (such as a secondary review of financial statements) in order to help mitigate the inherent risk. You consider the strength of the internal controls when assessing the client's control risk. Your job when assessing inherent risk is to evaluate how susceptible the financial statement assertions are to material misstatement given the nature of the client's business. A few key factors can increase inherent risk.Environment and external factors: Here are some examples of environment and external factors that can lead to high inherent risk:Rapid change: A business whose inventory becomes obsolete quickly experiences high inherent risk.Expiring patents: Any business in the pharmaceutical industry also has inherently risky environment and external factors. Drug patents eventually expire, which means the company faces competition from other manufacturers marketing the same drug under a generic label.State of the economy: The general level of economic growth is another external factor affecting all businesses.Availability of financing: Another external factor is interest rates and the associated availability of financing. If your client is having problems meeting its short-term cash payments, available loans with low interest rates may mean the difference between your client staying in business or having to close its doors.Prior-period misstatements: If a company has made mistakes in prior years that weren't material (meaning they weren't significant enough to have to change), those errors still exist in the financial statements. You have to aggregate prior-period misstatements with current year misstatements to see if you need to ask the client to adjust the account for the total misstatement.You may think an understatement in one year compensates for an overstatement in another year. In auditing, this assumption isn't true. Say you work a cash register and one night the register comes up $20 short. The next week, you somehow came up $20 over my draw count. The $20 differences are added together to represent the total amount of your mistakes which is $40 and not zero. Zero would indicate no mistakes at all had occurred.Susceptibility to theft or fraud: If a certain asset is susceptible to theft or fraud, the account or balance level may be considered inherently risky. For example, if a client has a lot of customers who pay in cash, the balance sheet cash account is going to have risk associated with theft or fraud because of the fact that cash is more easily diverted than customer checks or credit card payments.Looking at industry statistics relating to inventory theft, you may also decide to consider the inventory account as inherently risky. Small inventory items can further increase the risk of this account valuation being incorrect because those items are easier to conceal (and therefore easier to steal).Control Risk -Control risk has been defined under International Standards of Auditing (ISAs) as following:The risk that a misstatement that could occur in an assertion about a class of transaction, account balance or disclosure and that could be material, either individually or when aggregated with other misstatements, will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis by the entity's internal control.In simple words control risk is the probability that a material misstatement exists in an assertion because that misstatement was not either prevented from entering entity's financial information or it was not detected and corrected by the internal control system of the entity.It is the responsibility of the management and those charged with governance to implement internal control system and maintain it appropriately which includes managing control risk.There can be many reasons for control risk to arise and why it cannot be eliminated absolutely. But some of them are as follows:Cost-benefit constraints -Circumvention of controls -Inappropriate design of controlsInappropriate application of controlsLack of control environment and accountabilityNovel situations -Outdated controls -Inappropriate segregation of dutiesDetection Risk -Detection Risk is the risk that the auditors fail to detect a material misstatement in the financial statements.An auditor must apply audit procedures to detect material misstatements in the financial statements whether due to fraud or error. Misapplication or omission of critical audit procedures may result in a material misstatement remaining undetected by the auditor. Some detection risk is always present due to the inherent limitations of the audit such as the use of sampling for the selection of transactions.Detection risk can be reduced by auditors by increasing the number of sampled transactions for detailed testing.The following answers are incorrect:Inherent Risk - It is the risk level or exposure of a process or entity to be audited without taking into account the control that management has implemented.Detection risk - The risk that material errors or misstatements that have occurred will not be detected by an IS auditor.Overall audit risk - The probability that information or financial report may contain material errors and that the auditor may not detect an error that has occurred. An objective in formulating the audit approach is to limit the audit risk in the area under security so the overall audit risk is at sufficiently low level at the completion of the examination.The following reference(s) were/was used to create this question:CISA review manual 2014 page number 50http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit_riskhttp://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-assess-inherent-risk-in-an-audit.html http://pakaccountants.com/what-is-control-risk/ http://accounting-simplified.com/audit/risk-assessment/audit-risk.html

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