What do you understand by 'internal control'? What are its components ?

Internal control is defined as a process, affected by an organization's people and information technology systems, designed to help the organization accomplish specific goals or objectives. It is a means by which an organization's resources are directed, monitored, and measured. It plays an important role in preventing and detecting fraud and protecting the organization's resources, both physical and intangible. Internal control means the policies and procedures, practices and organizational structures, designed to provide reasonable assurance that business objectives will be achieved and that undesired events will be prevented or detected and corrected. Components of Internal Control: Internal control consists of five interrelated components. Control Environment: The control environment is the set of standards, processes, and structures that provide the basis for carrying out internal control across the organization. Risk Assessment: Every entity faces a variety of risks from external and internal sources. Risk assessment involves a dynamic and iterative process for identifying and assessing risks to the achievement of objectives. Control Activities: Control activities are the actions established through policies and procedures that help ensure that management's directives to mitigate risks to the achievement of objectives are carried out. Information and Communication: Information is necessary for the entity to carry out internal control responsibilities to support the achievement of its objectives. Communication is the continual, iterative process of providing, sharing, and obtaining necessary information. Internal communication is the means by which information is disseminated throughout the organization, flowing up, down, and across the entity. Monitoring Activities: Ongoing evaluations, separate evaluations, or some combination of the two are used to ascertain whether each of the five components of internal control, including controls to affect the principles within each component, is present and functioning.