Software Audit
Imagine that you, as Information Systems Manager, find this on your desk from
your CEO.
- What are you going to say to him/her?
- Can you explain the anomalies?
- Would you be in a position to give the CEO the full report 90 minutes later as
asked?
Software Audit - Why Do It?
As a CEO or an Information Systems Manager:
- Do you know what files are installed on all of your organization's computers?
- Are they protected by copyright laws? If so, did you pay or have you got
permission from the copyright owner for their use?
If they are protected by copyright and you have not paid or got the copyright
owner's permission to use them, you are infringing copyright and may be liable
to prosecution and fines.
- Could image files be considered to be pornographic or obscene?
If they are, once again, you could be liable for prosecution and fines.
No organization can afford to be caught out by having such files (unlicensed
copyrighted or pornographic) on their computers.
It is vital fior your business survival that you are on top of what
files you have on the computers used by your workforce.
That is why you should conduct regular a Software Audit.
Software Audit - Discovery Audit
Software Audit - Discovery Audit is a fast Software Audit tool that will, in a
matter of minutes, provide you with a list of all of the following
file types on a computer including all:
- Executable files (*.exe)
- Other executable files (*.ocx, *.com, *.dll)
- The common image file types (*.gif, *.jpg, *.bmp, *.tif, *.png, *.wmf)
- The common sound file types ((*.mp3, *.mp4, *.wav)
- The common video file types (*.avi, *.mov, *.mpg)
- The commonest fonts (*.afm, *.abf, *.bdf, *.bmf, *.fnt, *.fon, *.fond, *.mgf,
*.ofm, *. otf, *. pcf, *.pfa, *.pfb, *.ps, *.snf, *.tfm, *.ttc, *.ttf)
It is highly likely that most of the files listed above are subject to
copyright.
Software Audit - Discovery Audit, What Does It Do?
Software Audit - Discovery Audit produces 4 raw data files showing all of
the file types listed above. The files are in csv format so that you can upload
them into your favorite database or spreadsheet application. The raw data files
are:
- A snapshot file summarizing the file and byte counts, an example of which can be
seen here.
- A registry uninstall area file, an example of which can be seen
here.
- A hardware summary file, an example of which can be seen
here.
- A raw data file showing all of the details about the file types listed above, an
example of which can be seen here.
Not much use like that are they? What do you do with them now? Waste valuable
time trying to analyse them to find out if you are compliant?
Of course not! You are not in the business of conducting software audits.
So what do you do with them?
Software Audit - Discovery Audit Dashboard
Instead of importing them into your favorite database or spreadsheet
application, you import them into the PCProfile Discovery Audit Dashboard
developed by Satsuma Inspired
Business Solutions to produce the sort of summary report shown above.
But the PCProfile Discovery Audit Dashboard does a lot more than produce
that summary above. By clicking on the dials in the summary above you can drill
down to find out exactly where the non-compliance exists.
You can drill down and get:
- A 'helicopter' level view of the files in bar graph format.
- Details of which computers are above your Standard Operating Environment (SOE)
thresholds.
- What fonts are above your SOE thresholds.
- What computers have excessive amounts of images.
- WWhat computers are loaded up with movie files.
- What computers are swamped with
music files.
- A view of all computers that are above SOE
thresholds.
Once you know where, you can now investigate why and take the necessary steps to
rectify the situation.
Software Audit - Discovery Audit, Requirements
Software Audit - Discovery Audit will run on:
- Any PC running any version of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 including
64 bit.
- The PC requires a minimum of .Net 2.0 to run.
Discovery Audit is very small, small enough to fit on a floppy disk.
You could run it from a USB Flash disk since you can instruct the program to
write the results file to that disk. This means that you can walk from PC to PC,
audit it in a couple of minutes and move on to the next. Once all machines have
been audited, you import the raw data into the PC Profile Discovery Audit
Dashboard to produce your software audit reports.
Software Audit - Discovery Audit. What Do I Do Now?
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