The National Audit Office said today that it had carried out an examination of the AFM’s IT operations and investments and their alignment or otherwise with the AFM’s strategic objectives.

It said the AFM IT Strategy highlights, amongst other things, the importance of having an autonomous operational Wide Area Network, which would have sufficient bandwidth to eventually support the AFM operations and administration.

The audit office said it observed that although the AFM maintain the overall IT inventory in a very efficient and structured way, it should ideally invest in an electronic IT inventory application.

Overall, the NAO commended the number of IT related internal policies and operating procedures that were issued by the AFM.

Moreover, although the AFM took a number of initiatives to mitigate the risks involved in the event of a disruption or total failure in the IT systems within the organisation, the NAO noted that the AFM, like various other entities, which have been audited, does not have formalised IT Business Continuity plans.

Thus, the NAO recommended that the AFM carries out a Business Impact Analysis to identify the business and operational impacts of IT related incidents in order to determine a recovery strategy.

The NAO also recommended that the AFM carry out a risk assessment to analyse critical IT assets to identify possible threats to those assets and assess the level of vulnerability.

This Audit Report may be accessed through the National Audit Office website (www.nao.gov.mt).