An auditor lacks clear, authoritative guidance on how to scope IT General Controls (ITGC) for SOX compliance, leading to inconsistent practices and difficulty defending scope decisions to external auditors.

Existing guidance (e.g., COBIT, COSO) is not prescriptive enough for ITGC scoping; there is no single standard that clearly defines which areas (e.g., physical security, backups) must be included or excluded in a SOX ITGC program, causing inconsistencies across organizations.