Model Checking – A Rigorous and Efficient Tool for E-Commerce Internal Control and Assurance

An e-business’ economic well-being is dependent on the correctness of its e-processes. This reliance provides the incentive to invest and promote tools to verify e-process design and implementation. Model checking, an advanced formal verification method, can support this need (Wang, Hidvégi, Bailey, Jr. and Whinston 2000). Temporal logic, coupled with automata-theoretic verification, provides a rigorous and efficient means of specifying and assuring correct e-process behavior. Through an e-ticket sales example, we demonstrate that model checking can locate subtle but critical flaws and errors that traditional control and auditing methods like an analytical procedure often miss. In addition to the management’s desire of sufficient internal controls, e-business users also want independent and credible external assurance as to the integrity of e-business operations. Auditors, equipped with model checking and other tools and their already established independence, reputation and industrial domain expertise, are competitive in offering quality control and assurance for e-commerce.