• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

erek

erek

8=D
2FA
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
17,953
“PWNED Welcome back to PWNED, where we talk about organizations that are independently self-owned. This week’s tale of toxic tech involves a disgruntled ex-employee who had the means and opportunity to wreak havoc.

Our story comes courtesy of Yad Senapathy, who serves as CEO of the Project Management Training Institute in Dallas, Texas. He recalls a time many years ago when he used to work in IT at a company with more than 1,000 employees.

While Senapathy was working there, the company terminated an employee, but nobody cut off his access to internal systems. The angry worker logged back in, then deleted files, locked out other people's accounts, and even corrupted a database.

"Several days passed where the person was no longer on payroll, but their credentials were still active," Senapathy said. "Nobody had been clearly assigned to shut them off. HR thought IT would handle it once the termination was processed. IT was waiting for HR to send a formal request. I've learned that when nobody is clearly responsible and there is no set deadline, these things can easily get missed until there is already a problem."“

Source: https://www.theregister.com/securit...dollars-because-nobody-revoked-access/5292763
 
Yep. Processes are great but when you shut your brain off and let something bad happen because you were waiting on the process then you're a bloody idiot. Some people are perfectly content to sit back and watch things fall apart and defend themselves by saying "I was following the process". Usually it is because they resent a lot of the processes and are purposefully rigging the system to make it fail.
 
kirbyrj said:
And this former employee should be arrested. Just because a door is unlocked doesn't give you the right to go in and damage the contents.
Click to expand...
He probably was, but was it worth the damages? You hear this story so many times that it just gets funnier every time I hear it. It's a reminder that you shouldn't fuck around with technology you don't understand.
beetlejuice keeps getting funnier every time I see it.gif
 
kirbyrj said:
And this former employee should be arrested. Just because a door is unlocked doesn't give you the right to go in and damage the contents.
Click to expand...
Nah, it was probably in india, where everything goes.
 
At my work, if you announce you are quitting and going to a similar company you are immediately cut off and escorted from the premises. They then pay you to stay home for the next several weeks (or more if you decide to use vacation time). They aren’t mean about it, and it’s an “open secret” that everyone job shopping knows about. They also do the thing that a firing/layoff is done as a surprise usually on your day off. All for this reason. But the downside is that when good people get layed off, it screws over the co-workers that are equally blindsided.

We had an issue with one of the fabs in the company, where HR layed off every person in the fab that worked a particular process tool. But the issue was that there were still lots in the tools. So then some unfamiliar person had to call us in a different fab to walk them through how to unload the wafers from the tool. So rediculous.
 
westrock2000 said:
At my work, if you announce you are quitting and going to a similar company you are immediately cut off and escorted from the premises. They then pay you to stay home for the next several weeks (or more if you decide to use vacation time). They aren’t mean about it, and it’s an “open secret” that everyone job shopping knows about. They also do the thing that a firing/layoff is done as a surprise usually on your day off. All for this reason. But the downside is that when good people get layed off, it screws over the co-workers that are equally blindsided.

We had an issue with one of the fabs in the company, where HR layed off every person in the fab that worked a particular process tool. But the issue was that there were still lots in the tools. So then some unfamiliar person had to call us in a different fab to walk them through how to unload the wafers from the tool. So rediculous.
Click to expand...
At least at your work, they paid the guy very well after being fired. That's the smart move. Firing someone who's the only one who knows how the equipment works and only him is never a good idea. The best stories are the ones where they fire the guy and nobody knows how to operate the stuff he built. Talking about a guy who wrote everything in Cobalt and documented none of it. They had to ask him for help and he charged a lot more than he was worth being fired over.
 
Being in IT/Cyber it always amazes me when you still hear about these stories happening. Like how basic is it to make a process for offboarding, it is not hard. Then you get companies that fire key people, but do not tell anyone in the company, not even those below them or who relied on them in some way.

I am happy where we are, we get a week notice from HR for most firings, and if it is going to be a quick on for what ever reason they reach out to me directly and confirm dates and times.
 
SOP for letting anyone in IT Admin go is to terminate their admin access (if not entire account) before they know they're being let go.

The job I worked at with a formal IT dept had 2 buildings a mile or two apart, IT was centralized in one building with very few exceptions. Any time IT did layoffs they'd have an all hands meeting in the other building. Someone was lurking in the home base lobby, and would kill accounts while the layoff victims were in transit. According to my friend who worked with them, after the first time everyone knew what was up and checked their phone/laptop to see if they still had access to all their accounts on arrival which made their bosses announcement after everyone was their a mere formality.
 
Ididar said:
Some people are perfectly content to sit back and watch things fall apart and defend themselves by saying "I was following the process".
Click to expand...

A big part of the reason you never see obvious improvements being made is because the system exists to protect itself where specific individuals are personally advantaged by the status-quo. The defense is the process that they, themselves, control. Those individuals would generally not survive without the integrity of the process.

This is also why you don’t see much talent working in government anymore. Those who want to get something done are constantly frustrated by the process and give up and leave.
 
HockeyJon said:
A big part of the reason you never see obvious improvements being made is because the system exists to protect itself where specific individuals are personally advantaged by the status-quo. The defense is the process that they, themselves, control. Those individuals would generally not survive without the integrity of the process.

This is also why you don’t see much talent working in government anymore. Those who want to get something done are constantly frustrated by the process and give up and leave.
Click to expand...
Basically was going to say this.

The process often gets in the way of getting shit done.

If the IT team disabled access without the HR approval, it's possible they would have been punished for violating the process, following the process means they cannot be held at fault.

At some point, someone in IT disabled an account because some other team told them to, HR got REALLY PISSY and threw a tantrum feeling they were bypassed, got the IT team in trouble somehow, and made enough of a ruckus that this part of the "Process" was born.

The "Process" is not there to ensure the right thing is done, it's forged over years and years of middle-managers trying to micromanage things they don't understand, misunderstandings, teams or departments feeling their authority challenged, situations where someone followed instinct or common sense and got their ass kicked for it. It's a set-in-stone "See, I told you so" document that is designed to play "liability hot-potato" and punt the liability down the line.

Many times I will tell management to give me a directive in writing before I follow some boneheaded or outright malicious instruction. "Give that to me in writing or I'm not doing it" and that's honestly one of the most frightening things to incompetent managers. Rarely, RARELY will they follow through on it, because shit (like what this news article is about) happens.
 
toast0 said:
Another nice one is writing an email

"Per your request, I'm going to do [the dumbass thing]"
Click to expand...

That approach doesn't always work in I.T. favor. Preferred to be in writing or email form of the individual or group request(s) which then would be approved by HR.
 
KazeoHin said:
Basically was going to say this.

The process often gets in the way of getting shit done.

If the IT team disabled access without the HR approval, it's possible they would have been punished for violating the process, following the process means they cannot be held at fault.

At some point, someone in IT disabled an account because some other team told them to, HR got REALLY PISSY and threw a tantrum feeling they were bypassed, got the IT team in trouble somehow, and made enough of a ruckus that this part of the "Process" was born.

The "Process" is not there to ensure the right thing is done, it's forged over years and years of middle-managers trying to micromanage things they don't understand, misunderstandings, teams or departments feeling their authority challenged, situations where someone followed instinct or common sense and got their ass kicked for it. It's a set-in-stone "See, I told you so" document that is designed to play "liability hot-potato" and punt the liability down the line.

Many times I will tell management to give me a directive in writing before I follow some boneheaded or outright malicious instruction. "Give that to me in writing or I'm not doing it" and that's honestly one of the most frightening things to incompetent managers. Rarely, RARELY will they follow through on it, because shit (like what this news article is about) happens.
Click to expand...

100%. It’s the same reason why consultants will always be in business. Management often knows what they want to do, but liability and career risk can be an issue. Solution? Hire a consultant. If it doesn’t work out, it’s the consultant’s fault, they gave you bad advice! If it works out, you’re the genius who selected the right consultant and executed on that plan so brilliantly. It’s the same reason why AI will never fully replace SAAS.
 
Our process is that if the termination form is missing a date/time, then it’s executed immediately upon ticket created notification.

We get a bit testy when HR or the department manager don’t send us a form. Apart from that form and responsible parties opening tickets, we have no visibility on departures.

Occasionally, my director of IT will let us know that a term ticket is on the way, but lock it out now. Those have been rare.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top