Sec-Auditor:A Blockchain-Based Data Auditing Solution for Ensuring Integrity and Semantic Correctness

Currently,there is a growing trend among users to store their data in the cloud.However,the cloud is vulnerable to persistent data corruption risks arising from equipment failures and hacker attacks.Additionally,when users perform file operations,the semantic integrity of the data can be compromised.Ensuring both data integrity and semantic correctness has become a critical issue that requires attention.We introduce a pioneering solution called Sec-Auditor,the first of its kind with the ability to verify data integrity and semantic correctness simultaneously,while maintaining a constant communication cost independent of the audited data volume.Sec-Auditor also supports public auditing,enabling anyone with access to public information to conduct data audits.This feature makes Sec-Auditor highly adaptable to open data environments,such as the cloud.In Sec-Auditor,users are assigned specific rules that are utilized to verify the accuracy of data semantic.Furthermore,users are given the flexibility to update their own rules as needed.We conduct in-depth analyses of the correctness and security of Sec-Auditor.We also compare several important security attributes with existing schemes,demonstrating the superior properties of Sec-Auditor.Evaluation results demonstrate that even for time-consuming file upload operations,our solution is more efficient than the comparison one.

SHT-based public auditing protocol with error tolerance in FDL-empowered IoVs

With the intelligentization of the Internet of Vehicles(lovs),Artificial Intelligence(Al)technology is becoming more and more essential,especially deep learning.Federated Deep Learning(FDL)is a novel distributed machine learning technology and is able to address the challenges like data security,privacy risks,and huge communication overheads from big raw data sets.However,FDL can only guarantee data security and privacy among multiple clients during data training.If the data sets stored locally in clients are corrupted,including being tampered with and lost,the training results of the FDL in intelligent IoVs must be negatively affected.In this paper,we are the first to design a secure data auditing protocol to guarantee the integrity and availability of data sets in FDL-empowered IoVs.Specifically,the cuckoo filter and Reed-Solomon codes are utilized to guarantee error tolerance,including efficient corrupted data locating and recovery.In addition,a novel data structure,Skip Hash Table(SHT)is designed to optimize data dynamics.Finally,we illustrate the security of the scheme with the Computational Diffie-Hellman(CDH)assumption on bilinear groups.Sufficient theoretical analyses and performance evaluations demonstrate the security and efficiency of our scheme for data sets in FDL-empowered IoVs.

Exploration of Interdisciplinary Integration in Teaching Reform of Legal Studies and Auditing

This paper attempts to explore interdisciplinary integration from four aspects:the necessity of interdisciplinary integration between legal studies and auditing,the difficulties and challenges encountered in this integration,the ideas for teaching reform in the context of interdisciplinary integration,and the expected outcomes.The aim is to achieve an organic integration of legal studies and auditing through systematic teaching reforms,thereby providing students with comprehensive and integrated knowledge and skills training,ensuring the quality of talent cultivation,and adapting to the needs of social development.

Forensic Auditing Techniques and Fraudulent Practices of Public Institutions in Nigeria

Public institutions are charged with the responsibility of providing essential services for the welfare of the citizens by manipulating the economy＇s financial flow through public expenditure, taxation, and so on. The reliance on public institutions to provide public services in Nigeria has resulted in disappointing results, because chief executives of the institutions take less interest in the degree of its success, and this accounts for the high level of fraudulent practices in such institutions. This study, therefore, examined the relationship between forensic auditing and fraudulent practices in Nigerian public institutions. To achieve this purpose, some hypothetical statements were made and a review of relevant literature was explored. The population of the study consisted of the general managers and accountants of 12 public institutions in Nigeria. The data generated were statistically tested with the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient. The findings suggest that both the proactive and reactive forensic auditing techniques have a negative significant relationship with fraudulent practices in Nigerian public institutions. Based on the above, it was recommended that： （1） The Economic and Financial Crime Commission （EFCC）, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission （ICPC）, and other anti-corruption bodies in Nigeria should have, in their payroll, internal forensic auditors to supplement the duties of the internal auditors; （2） Forensic auditors should regularly undergo training and development programs to acquaint them with relevant knowledge and skills for effective forensic auditing; and （3） Forensic auditing should be made mandatory for public institutions by regulatory authorities rather than being voluntary.

Does Independent External Auditing Play a Role in Corporate Governance？ An Empirical Study on Chinese A-Share Listed Firms

In China, an emerging economy, where investor protection is relatively weak, it is worthwhile and interesting to investigate whether independent external auditing, a sort of external corporate governance mechanism, exerts its influence. Using a sample of all A-share listed firms in 2005, this paper investigates the effects of independent external auditing on corporate governance via three aspects： （1） choice of auditing institution; （2） auditing fee; and （3） auditing opinion for annual reports. Empirical results show that, with worse agency problems in firms, the possibility of employing the “Big 41” to audit its annual reports is bigger. When determining auditing fees, auditing institutions take both firms＇ agency problems and the firm size into account. When issuing qualified opinions for poor-performing firms, auditors do not consider agency problems embedded in concentrated ownership. Overall, external independent auditing plays a limited role in corporate governance.

Research on Firm Size, Firm Performance and Internal Auditing Modes——Based on Listed Manufacturing Companies of China

This paper is based on the samples of listed manufacturing companies of China, taking the financial performance as criterion, and then does research on the firm performance with different internal auditing modes, using Cross-sectional data to analyze the distribution of internal auditing modes and the characteristics of the firm performance. The conclusion is that setting up internal auditing is good for the development of companies, but the function of internal auditing has not been widelv fulfilled.

双语审计Auditing本科教学的三重目标

文章设定了双语审计Auditing本科教学的三重目标:精确地洞察和理解英语国家"原汁原味"的审计理念和方法;通过两种语言的比较与切换,去不断发现和理解中外审计的异同,强化对基本审计知识与技能的学习,逐步形成审计学的价值判断;在国际环境下,以英语和汉语两种语言为媒介,通过审计行为、审计观念和审计技术的互相渗透、互相融合,培养学生的全球审计服务意识。

Auditing the Auditors： The Audit Oversight Board and Regulating Audit Quality in Malaysia

The setting-up of the Malaysian Audit Oversight Board （AOB） in 2010 under the Securities Commission Amendment Act 2010 has extended the role of regulators into the statutory audit domain for public listed companies. Although the auditing profession in Malaysia has International Auditing Standards as prescribed minimum level of quality in the delivery of audit assurance services, self-regulation by the profession alone appears inadequate to ensure the delivery of quality audit services. With co-regulation, auditors now are monitored not just by the profession but also by a new statutory body with considerable regulatory powers to sanction auditors where quality of the audit process has been found wanting. This study solicits the opinions of auditors on their expectations of what the new regulator can achieve. Based on interviews with a sample of 30 auditors, the study finds that the majority believe that audit quality will be taken to a new level following AOB＇s remit of registration of auditors, compliance inspection with International Standard on Quality Control （ISQC）, monitoring of financial statement quality, and its power of sanctions. A review of AOB＇s early years＇ inspection confirms these expectations.

Extending Auditing Models to Correspond with Clients’ Needs in Cloud Environments

The user control over the life cycle of data is of an extreme importance in clouds in order to determine whether the service provider adheres to the client’s pre-specified needs in the contract between them or not, significant clients concerns raise on some aspects like social, location and the laws to which the data are subject to. The problem is even magnified more with the lack of transparency by Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). Auditing and compliance enforcement introduce different set of challenges in cloud computing that are not yet resolved. In this paper, a conducted questionnaire showed that the data owners have real concerns about not just the secrecy and integrity of their data in cloud environment, but also for spatial, temporal, and legal issues related to their data especially for sensitive or personal data. The questionnaire results show the importance for the data owners to address mainly three major issues: Their ability to continue the work, the secrecy and integrity of their data, and the spatial, legal, temporal constraints related to their data. Although a good volume of work was dedicated for auditing in the literature, only little work was dedicated to the fulfillment of the contractual obligations of the CSPs. The paper contributes to knowledge by proposing an extension to the auditing models to include the fulfillment of contractual obligations aspects beside the important aspects of secrecy and integrity of client’s data.

The Importance of Auditing Professional Judgment and Its Application in Auditing Practice

With the rapid development of economy, auditing professional judgment is becoming more and more important in auditing practice.This paper analyzes the importance of audit professional judgment, the cause and the application of audit professional judgment in auditing practice.

Multi-indicator assessment of water environment in government environmental auditing

This study focused on a multi-indicator assessment methodology for governmental environmental auditing of water protection programs. The environmental status of Wuli Lake in China was assessed using the global indicators （driver-status-response） developed by the Commission on Sustainable Development, and four additional indicators proposed by the author： water quality, pollution load, aquatic ecosystem status, and lake sediment deposition. Various hydrological, chemical, biological and environmental parameters were used to estimate the values of the indicators for assessment of environmental status of the lake based on time series data sets for twenty years. The indicators proposed can be customized to meeting the needs for particular assessment of water protection programs. This method can be used to evaluate the performance of national environmental protection programs and provide technical support for environmental auditors.

Authorized Identity-Based Public Cloud Storage Auditing Scheme with Hierarchical Structure for Large-Scale User Groups

Identity-based public cloud storage auditing schemes can check the integrity of cloud data, and reduce the complicated certificate management. In such a scheme, one Private Key Generator(PKG) is employed to authenticate the identity and generate private keys for all users, and one Third Party Auditor(TPA) is employed to by users to check the integrity of cloud data. This approach is undesirable for large-scale users since the PKG and the TPA might not be able to afford the heavy workload. To solve the problem, we give a hierarchical Private Key Generator structure for large-scale user groups, in which a root PKG delegates lower-level PKGs to generate private keys and authenticate identities. Based on the proposed structure, we propose an authorized identity-based public cloud storage auditing scheme, in which the lowest-level PKGs play the role of TPA, and only the authorized lowest-level PKGs can represent users in their domains to check cloud data's integrity. Furthermore, we give the formal security analysis and experimental results, which show that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient.

WiBPA:An Efficient Data Integrity Auditing Scheme Without Bilinear Pairings

The security of cloud data has always been a concern.Cloud server provider may maliciously tamper or delete user’s data for their own benefit,so data integrity audit is of great significance to verify whether data is modified or not.Based on the general three-party audit architecture,a dynamic auditing scheme without bilinear pairings is proposed in this paper.It utilizes exponential operation instead of bilinear mapping to verify the validity of evidence.By establishing the mapping relation between logic index and tag index of data block with index transformation table,our scheme can easily support dynamic data operation.By hiding random numbers in the integrity evidence,our scheme can protect users’privacy information.Detailed security analysis shows that our scheme is secure against attacks such as forgery,replaying and substitution.Further experiments demonstrate that our scheme has lower computational overhead.

Reforming the natural resource auditing system from the ecological civilization perspective

Perfecting the natural resource system and auditing natural resource assets are requirements in protecting natural resources and developing an ecological civilization in practice.While the natural resource asset audit both confirms and quantifies natural resources,the nature of such resources makes it difficult to identify their ownership.Further,these resources'diversity creates complex measurement standards and activities,all of which require relevant institutional guarantees.However,the existing audit system for natural resource assets includes insufficient stock,incremental difficulties,and poor guidance,which cannot meet the requirements for environmental governance and an ecological civilization.Thus,it is necessary to define natural resource assets’rights and measurement systems and responsibility regulations,among others;construct an auditing participation system,technical regulations,and evaluation criterion for natural resource assets;amend the Audit Law in a timely manner;and enact natural resource asset legislation.Ultimately,such efforts would eliminate the bottleneck in the natural resource asset auditing system and facilitate the construction of a resource-saving,environmentally friendly society.

A survey on blockchain-based integrity auditing for cloud data

With the rapid advancement of cloud computing,cloud storage services have developed rapidly.One issue that has attracted particular attention in such remote storage services is that cloud storage servers are not enough to reliably save and maintain data,which greatly affects users’confidence in purchasing and consuming cloud storage services.Traditional data integrity auditing techniques for cloud data storage are centralized,which faces huge security risks due to single-point-of-failure and vulnerabilities of central auditing servers.Blockchain technology offers a new approach to this problem.Many researchers have endeavored to employ the blockchain for data integrity auditing.Based on the search of relevant papers,we found that existing literature lacks a thorough survey of blockchain-based integrity auditing for cloud data.In this paper,we make an in-depth survey on cloud data integrity auditing based on blockchain.Firstly,we cover essential basic knowledge of integrity auditing for cloud data and blockchain techniques.Then,we propose a series of requirements for evaluating existing Blockchain-based Data Integrity Auditing(BDIA)schemes.Furthermore,we provide a comprehensive review of existing BDIA schemes and evaluate them based on our proposed criteria.Finally,according to our completed review and analysis,we explore some open issues and suggest research directions worthy of further efforts in the future.

State Auditing With the Investment in Public Sector： Case of Vietnam

In Vietnam, in the current period, public investment plays an important role in the improvement of technical infrastructure systems, economic and social development of motivation to promote national development. However, the question is how to ensure that these sources of funds are used most effectively in terms of limited resources. In this article, the author would like to emphasize the critical role of the state auditor which is not only in the transparency of information, in enhancing the trust of the citizens, but also in providing important and reliable information to the public sector agencies, units, investors, and people in the society. From that, it could help to serve the management and administration of revenues and expenditures of the state budget as well as reasonably and efficiently using financial resources and assets. In case of perfectly conducting those tasks, they will contribute the power to the economy, fight corruption as loss or waste, and detect and prevent violations of law; improve the efficient use of the budget, the money, and property of the state; and serve effectively for the operation of the National Assembly and People＇s Councils at all levels of the implementation and monitoring function to decide important issues of national and local governments. With the above information, these matters in Vietnam will be solved through this paper that consists of five parts： （1） the basics about the current public investment in Vietnam; （2） the role of state auditing in improving performance management and monitoring of investment; （3） the limitations of state auditing in public investment; （4） many solutions to promote the role of state auditing in improving the effective investment activities; and （5） conclusion.

Big Data, Data Analytics and External Auditing

Big Data and Data Analytics affect almost all aspects of modern organisations’decision-making and business strategies.Big Data and Data Analytics create opportunities,challenges,and implications for the external auditing procedure.The purpose of this article is to reveal essential aspects of the impact of Big Data and Data Analytics on external auditing.It seems that Big Data Analytics is a critical tool for organisations,as well as auditors,that contributes to the enhancement of the auditing process.Also,legislative implications must be taken under consideration,since existing standards may need to change.Last,auditors need to develop new skills and competence,and educational organisations need to change their educational programs in order to be able to correspond to new market needs.

Energy Auditing and Improvement Scheme for Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences at Taibah University

In this work, a survey is used to investigate the current energy performance for Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences (previously Faculty of Engineering) at Taibah University in Medina city. The results of the survey show that several factors affect the energy performance in this building. It revealed that the building has been poorly designed from the point of view of thermal performance. Therefore, the building energy consumption needs to be monitored and maintained through energy auditing program. To determine the energy profile, the power consumption was calculated;the cooling load was estimated and analyzed to know the actual capacity required. The level of comfort in the building has been evaluated. Against the installed air conditioning capacity of 200-ton refrigeration, the cooling load calculations showed that the maximum cooling load needed, which is in August is only 83.22-ton refrigeration. In addition, illumination levels were measured and compared to the standard levels. Based on obtained results, two solutions were proposed: to install a building management system with approximate cost of 337,904 SR and to replace the existing chiller. Finally, the payback period for the proposed system has been estimated and found to be about 5.4 years.

Integrated criteria for covert channel auditing

A new concept, the security level difference of a covert channel, is presented, which means the security level span from the sender to the receiver of the covert channel. Based on this, the integrated criteria for covert channel auditing are given. Whereas TCSEC (Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria) or CC (Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation) only use the bandwidth to evaluate the threat of covert channels, our new criteria integrate the security level difference, the bandwidth sensitive parameter, bandwidth, duration and instantaneous time of covert channels, so as to give a comprehensive evaluation of the threat of covert channels in a multilevel security system.

Intelligent Security Auditing Based on Access Control of Devices in Ad Hoc Network

Security in Ad Hoc network is an important issue under the opening circumstance of application service. Some protocols and models of security auditing have been proposed to ensure rationality of contracting strategy and operating regulation and used to identify abnormal operation. Model of security auditing based on access control of devices will be advanced to register sign of devices and property of event of access control and to audit those actions. In the end, the model is analyzed and simulated.