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The Audit Connection Blog

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#CyberAware: Creating a strong password

October 21, 2016

Passwords are an everyday part of life whether you’re logging into your work, bank or social media accounts.  You should do everything you can to protect your passwords and use different passwords for different accounts as described in an earlier tip regarding “password reuse.”

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For the Love of Washington Cities

September 28, 2016

As a partner in the Government Performance Consortium (GPC) initiative, we are excited to share with you a mini-documentary about the first Love of Cities Tour in Washington State, which has sparked tremendous excitement across our state for new ways to connect cities and citizens in co-creating more vibrant, healthy and resilient communities.

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New checklist for Cash Basis financial statements

September 21, 2016

The State Auditor’s Office is responsible for examining the financial affairs of all local governments in the state. We conduct more than 2,000 audits of local governments each year. Using the results of those audits, our Office then evaluates the overall patterns and that were reported.

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Who audits the auditor? They do!

September 19, 2016

Government auditing standards require our office to get a “peer review” every three years. For our 2016 peer review, a team of auditors from eight other states and a federal agency came to Olympia the week of September 12th to review our audit policies and manuals and a cross-section of audit reports and working papers.

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“Vishing” can pose a threat

September 14, 2016

“Vishing” uses techniques that are essentially similar to phishing, the act of acquiring sensitive information via electronic communication while posing as a trusted entity. A vishing attack takes place over the telephone, using call spoofing, and tricks a user into disclosing personal information such as credit card numbers or a three digit security code.

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