Compliance Laws - Accounting

Sarbanes-Oxley Major Provisions - The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was enacted in the wake of several major corporate and accounting scandals. Its provisions affect email retention, integrity and oversight. Sarbanes-Oxley applies to all publicly traded companies and the CPA's and attorneys associated with these companies.

• Section 802 presents a possible fine of up to $1,000,000 dollars or a prison sentence of up to 20 years for any person who destroys, alters, mutilates or conceals any electronic document in an official investigation.
• Sarbanes-Oxley specifies minimum retention periods for all accounting records, work papers, communications, file attachments, and documents whether transmitted via email, instant messaging or other message modes.
• Section 302 requires CFO's and CEO's to personally certify and be accountable for their firms record retention policies and financial reports.
• Section 404 requires auditors to certify the underlying controls and processes that are used to compile the financial results of a company. Email is a critical component in being able to achieve this certification.
• Section 103(a) and 801(a) require companies to maintain all documents including electronic documents that form the basis of an audit or review for seven years.

Athena Archiver assists companies in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the following ways:

• Verify the integrity of the archive: as email comes into the system we time stamp, serialize and create a unique signature for each message.
• Provides two copies of the archive in an network connected storage device with another copy on a WORM (Write Once Read Many) device for unalterable compliant storage.
• Maintains a secure encrypted index along with the archive which can easily be provided to regulators if requested.
• Audit manager allows administrators to sample outgoing email, classified by keyword, user or department for quarantine and review.

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