Do Any of You Use your Administrative Rights to Snoop?
I read this article today in InfoWorld magazine and it floored me. So, here's today's question: Have you ever snooped through the company network using an administrative password for purely personal gain?
We all know this happens from time to time, but I wasn't aware how rampant it is!
Security experts have long-suggested that one of the biggest sources of IT threats comes from the very people charged with building and maintaining corporate computing systems, but a new study backed by password management specialists Cyber-Ark Software puts some startling stats behind the concept.According to a survey the company conducted at last month's Infosecurity Exhibition Europe in London, one in three of the roughly 200 IT employees participating in the study admitted to somehow gaining unauthorized access to company systems for the purpose of reading sensitive materials.
Among the specific items snooped by those responding to the survey were private files including those bearing sensitive wage data, personal e-mails, and HR data.
The favored method of choice for hacking the information? None other than the special administrative passwords that lend IT workers privileged and anonymous access to the systems they work on.
According to Cyber-Ark, one admin taking the survey chortled out loud...
"Why does it surprise you that so many of us snoop around your files, wouldn't you if you had secret access to anything you can get your hands on!"Um, no. First because it's illegal and could result in an immediate loss of one's job, income and reputation, or some form of legal prosecution , if discovered; secondly, because most people are more interested in their own lives.
In that sense, the study not only backs up the idea that insiders do represent a significant threat to corporate data, but also that some IT people are openly lecherous.
Have you ever done this? I'd be curious to know why. Share your input with the group -- use the comments field if you want to remain anonymous.
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