Disrupting Fraud: Auditing In the Digital World – A Block chain Perspective

Abstract

The increasing adaption of Blockchain technology internationally has had many implications towards the business environment, including its control environment, controls and the perceived reliability, transparency and integrity of the transactions and system. Although the mechanism for this technology seems strong, with the use of the private keys, protocol consensus, validation protocols, triple entries and Smart Contracts, there are still ways to apparently manipulate the ecosystem, depending on the size, complexity, validation nodes protocol etc. This qualitative research interviewed seven experts to gauge the actual risk environment. The main aim of this research was to assess the changes to the auditing profession and its relevance. Though the changes expected is magnified, the auditing procedures would possibly focus on more predictive and analytical relevance, focusing on related and associated parties and ultimately, trying to opine if a transaction not only falls within the validation protocols, but also ultimately, the legitimacy of the overall process. Audit trails leading to related parties and intentions to deceive would definitely be a priority. Although the strong trails would seem as a deterrent for would be fraudsters, it is expected that audit would still be relevant to pick up the scent. In order to achieve this balance, a hybrid between the traditional audit and information technology (IT) audit is predicted.

Keywords: Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology, Consensus Protocol, Blockchain Auditing.