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IT Gone Bad

This is admittedly an old story, but it still serves as a warning for those in IT to not trust others in IT, and for IT not to abuse its access to corporate and personal information. According to a survey by Cyber-Ark, a third of IT pros spy on company employees.

I've met with hundreds of security companies and I'd always ask the same question: What are you doing to prevent internal security breaches? They'd all wax on about how their software keeps employees from getting at private information. Then I'd say, "But what about IT itself? What do you do to keep IT insiders from breaching?"

In pretty much every case, the vendor would be dumbfounded. It never occurred to them that IT would do such a thing.

I decided to find out how big a problem this was and used my usual approach: Ask you, the Redmond Report reader. I got horror stories of IT snooping into executive e-mail and using machines to commit fraud, stalk old girlfriends and commit blackmail. If you want a real eye-opener, check out my story "IT Gone Bad" here.

Confess your sins by writing to me at [email protected]. When we run letters, we don't publish last names, so you can admit your wrong-doing with no consequences (except maybe easing of your guilty conscience).

Posted by Doug Barney on August 05, 2008


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