Certified Information Systems Auditor Practice Exam 2025 – All-in-One Guide to Master Your CISA Certification!

The most effective audit techniques for providing evidence of segregation of duties in an IT department are observations and interviews. This approach allows auditors to directly witness the processes and interactions taking place within the department. By observing how tasks are performed and how responsibilities are divided among staff members, auditors can assess whether duties are properly segregated according to established policies and control mechanisms.

Interviews further enhance this process by allowing auditors to engage with employees, seeking clarification on roles and responsibilities. This interaction can help uncover any potential overlaps in duties or misunderstandings about role delineation, which could lead to risks such as fraud or errors.

While the other techniques can provide insights into the controls in place - such as surveys, which gather subjective responses about perceived segregation, or data analysis, which may highlight anomalies - neither offers the same level of direct confirmation about how responsibilities are managed and enforced on a daily basis. Document reviews and sampling can validate policies but do not capture the real-time practices within the department as effectively as direct observations and interviews.