1. AI Governance and Security

The widespread adoption of AI systems across business functions has created new complexities for risk management. Internal Audit teams are concerned with governance frameworks and compliance, while CISOs focus on securing these systems against emerging threats. Together, they must ensure AI deployments maintain appropriate access controls, create clear audit trails for decision processes, and comply with rapidly evolving regulations.

Consider the case of generative AI tools that can access corporate data repositories. Both functions need to collaborate on policies that prevent data leakage while enabling legitimate business use. Internal Audit brings expertise in policy development, while security teams establish technical controls to enforce those policies. This partnership helps organizations harness AI's potential while mitigating the associated risks.

2. Third-Party Risk Management Evolution

Supply chain security continues to present significant challenges as attack surfaces expand through interconnected systems. Modern third-party risk management requires continuous monitoring rather than point-in-time assessments, creating natural synergies between audit and security functions.

Internal Audit contributes methodologies for risk classification and business impact assessment, while CISOs bring technical expertise on vulnerability management and threat intelligence. This collaboration leads to more comprehensive third-party evaluations that consider both operational dependencies and security implications. As supply chain attacks grow more sophisticated, this integrated approach becomes increasingly important.

3. Operational Resilience

Business continuity has evolved into the broader concept of operational resilience - maintaining critical functions during disruptions. This evolution creates natural overlap between Internal Audit's focus on operational risk and the CISO's concern with cyber resilience.

Together, these functions help identify critical business services and their dependencies, develop realistic testing scenarios that include both operational and cyber disruptions, and establish recovery time objectives that balance security controls with business needs. When working in tandem, they can ensure that resilience plans are both comprehensive and technically sound.

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