Summary

The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (Department), in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), implemented the Pest Incident Control System (PICS) to schedule, track, and report on Citrus Canker Eradication Program functions. Our audit focused on evaluating selected general and application controls related to PICS.

As described below, we noted deficiencies in certain management controls related to PICS.

• The Department had inadequate written change control procedures, detective controls, and acceptance testing controls for PICS software changes moved into the production environment. 

• The Department did not have adequate security administration procedures for PICS. 

• We noted instances of missing data items in PICS and inconsistencies between data stored in PICS and the respective source documentation. 

• Controls over physical access to the Department’s data center needed strengthening.  We noted instances where the Department had not established sufficient application access control features to protect PICS information resources.

The Department’s response can be viewed in its entirety on the Auditor General Web site.