Gartner speaks with its internal audit clients each year to identify and qualify their top concerns, or “audit hot spots,” heading into the next year. This process helps to substantiate and evaluate the hot issues that are forcing companies to respond at a strategic level.
This year’s results* show that the chief audit executive (CAE) is more focused than ever on risks related to the pursuit of digital models to drive growth. This means not just the technological and cybersecurity risk of digital business, but also privacy, ethical and regulatory risks. Table 1 below provides an overview of the last five years’ hot spots.
Table 1: Audit hot spots over the last five years
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| Information Security | Data Privacy | Cybersecurity – Technological Vulnerabilities |
