Six Brazen Security Breaches, Courtesy of IT

[HardOCP News]

It's not just hackers you have to worry about making off with your sensitive data, its your IT guys too! Hey, this would make a great movie of the week plot!

Once in a while, though, an IT worker gets disgruntled about an event at the company—typically his or her dismissal or some other disciplinary action— and enacts revenge the best way he or she knows how: through technology. If there’s anyone who’d know how to exploit your technological weaknesses, it’s your own IT staff. It doesn’t happen often, but when your IT turns rogue, their attacks can be devastating.

 

[soulpunisher]

Perhaps companies should pay their IT staff more so this kind of thing does not happen as often.

 

[nutzo]

Any IT worker, who enacts revenge by deleting stuff or otherwise disrupting their former employers systems, is just plain stupid. Their actions basically justifies that the company was correct in firing them.

The recent stories in the news about former IT personnel going to jail, shows that they where not really as smart as they thought they where.

Besides, if you really want to cause serious damage, you need to plant something that gradually corrupts or just deletes a few files each day, and starts several months after you left, so you are not the primary suspect 

 

[dgingeri]

Funny thing about disgruntled IT employees: they usually know they're going to get fired, and are really mad at themselves for being so incompetent, but blame their employer because they can't admit to themselves (delusional) that they are incompetent. So, being mad at their employer for something that is their own fault, they hurt the employer. These people are also the type that got the job because of being someone's friend or relative.

Granted, there are many cases where there are just bad employers (companies) and bad managers, but the majority are people who simply shouldn't have been given the job in the first place. The big lesson to learn: cut out the nepotism. Nepotism is eventually punished.

 

[JimmayLong]

Happens when people are hired and take it the wrong way. Its an personnel ethics that the person clearly said F it made the choice to "do the needfu"l..and accepted the consequences of that decision.

 

[TwistedAegis]

Not only is screwing your old employer an incredibly idiotic move, but those who deleted patient health records and organ donor records are also incredibly horrible human beings.

 

[lilbabycat]

Perhaps companies should pay their IT staff more so this kind of thing does not happen as often.

Nearly every IT person I've encountered in the corporate world has been just-shy of incompetent. Too many joined the field with zero interest or passion in computers, technology, etc expecting to get some fat paycheck with the limited knowledge they gained from their trash online college. They, like most government workers, do absolutely unskilled work and just so happen to have access to very sensitive data. This does not entitle them to some exorbitant pay.

 

[Genny]

Nearly every IT person I've encountered in the corporate world has been just-shy of incompetent. Too many joined the field with zero interest or passion in computers, technology, etc expecting to get some fat paycheck with the limited knowledge they gained from their trash online college. They, like most government workers, do absolutely unskilled work and just so happen to have access to very sensitive data. This does not entitle them to some exorbitant pay.

I agree with this statement. I don't think it's so much of a pay issue. Companies really need to focus on being nicer to IT, however, and creating engagement for them. IT employees are usually some of the least happy due to no promotion opportunities, no involvement in the company, etc.

 

[ianken]

I agree with this statement. I don't think it's so much of a pay issue. Companies really need to focus on being nicer to IT, however, and creating engagement for them. IT employees are usually some of the least happy due to no promotion opportunities, no involvement in the company, etc.

It is frequently a dead end, even in the tech industry. Where I work, moving over to "ops" essentially means your career is over. You might be a skilled IT ninja with deep know how but you're not going anywhere becuase your entire org is a "cost center." You're screwed.

All those German cars in the garage? Not driven by IT guys. Developers, test ninjas, yes. IT guys? No.

 

[Mickey21]

In reference to the article though, they already made this movie several times, but the most obvious one would be Hackers.

 

[Serpent]

Funny thing about disgruntled IT employees: they usually know they're going to get fired, and are really mad at themselves for being so incompetent, but blame their employer because they can't admit to themselves (delusional) that they are incompetent. So, being mad at their employer for something that is their own fault, they hurt the employer. These people are also the type that got the job because of being someone's friend or relative.

Granted, there are many cases where there are just bad employers (companies) and bad managers, but the majority are people who simply shouldn't have been given the job in the first place. The big lesson to learn: cut out the nepotism. Nepotism is eventually punished.

Isn't that how it normally is? for any worker/job? No one wants to blame themselves.

 

[nutzo]

It is frequently a dead end, even in the tech industry. Where I work, moving over to "ops" essentially means your career is over. You might be a skilled IT ninja with deep know how but you're not going anywhere becuase your entire org is a "cost center." You're screwed.

All those German cars in the garage? Not driven by IT guys. Developers, test ninjas, yes. IT guys? No.

You get what you pay for.
Too many companies see IT as a cost they they need to minimize as much as possible, without any consideration of what that does to the overall company productivity. Losing an order, or having 30 people sit around all day because the system is down costs more than paying a little extra good IT person.

I've worked both internal system support, and product support where I dealt with customers. I'd much rather stay with supporting internal systems where I have some level of control.

In most cases, the customer IT people are pretty clueless, and I had to point out basic problems in thier systems that where causing issues with the product I was supporting. By basic problems, I mean things like bad patch cables that where causing the network cards to disconnect from the network, or workstation/servers that needed at least 2x the ram they where running.

 

[rhone89]

Nearly every IT person I've encountered in the corporate world has been just-shy of incompetent. Too many joined the field with zero interest or passion in computers, technology, etc expecting to get some fat paycheck with the limited knowledge they gained from their trash online college. They, like most government workers, do absolutely unskilled work and just so happen to have access to very sensitive data. This does not entitle them to some exorbitant pay.

Agreed 100% I joined the world of IT back in the big boom during the late 90s. I joined because I already loved working with computers and I really wanted to make a career out of it. Most of the training classes I took for my MCSE had roughly 20 or so people in them. Only me and one other guy "got it". Everyone else in the class constantly asking us how to do things the instructor just explained, or things we'd already been over a million times.

All of em ended up becoming "paper certs" and most ended up with far better jobs than I did at the start. It took me many years to build up to where I am now in my career, and I got here because I actually give a crap about the quality of work I put out.


All that being said, there's plenty of bullshit on the other side of the fence too. There are plenty of IT "managers" who barely know how to run a mouse, let alone an IT department, and they make life a living hell for those of us who actually do the work. The best IT managers I worked for in my early years were the ones who had been techs themselves.

 

[rhone89]

I agree with this statement. I don't think it's so much of a pay issue. Companies really need to focus on being nicer to IT, however, and creating engagement for them. IT employees are usually some of the least happy due to no promotion opportunities, no involvement in the company, etc.

I never really gave a shit about being "involved in the company" for the places I've done IT for, mainly because their work didnt interest me. Hard to get excited about clerical work

But yes, for most companies, there isnt much room for promotion because they themselves dont see a path for it. You are their "IT guy", you're already at the top of the ladder for that part of the company in many cases. So the best thing to do (and what I have done over the years) is to document your good work, and at the end of the company's fiscal year (you need to know this about any company you work for), you schedule a meeting with your employer, discuss the things you've done to improve their IT, and things you *plan* to do for the coming year, and ask them for a raise. Its proven quite effective for me, even after the tech bubble burst.