I have been a contractor, a full time employee and a support tech. Over the years and this thought just came to me. Boy did it hurt I had to think 😉 Every place except two just let me walk in get a card, ID or token to have access to any thing I wanted. I could and did use mailrooms, new and used computer storage areas with no supervision. Yes there was security but if you need to take equipment to another building or move it from one area to another security just waved me by. I have never or will never steal or take something to make my life easier or to add to my desk. But wow think about this if a true (what a hacker or just a bad guy wanted to get stuff to sell or worse black mail a company) it is so simple and a walk through with hardly any security. But I have had my misgivings about others that I have worked with, do I need to watch people, other contractors I work with?
When I am at a job I give it my full attention and some times loose track of time and what goes on around me.
What do you think? Are we as IT peoples responsible for watching others or keeping track of what is going on? Even if we are not in the area that could be misused, have things removed or some one doing some thing they should not be doing?
I have seen people use company?s computers for music down loads, accessing external emails and looking through the company?s active directory for stuff they could get.
Yes with most places I have worked there is a computer usage policy to sign but there is no enforcement and with the outsourcing and so few regular employees, most contractors and even new people feel they can do what they want.
New servers and workstations are setup with defaults and never updated, it is easy to get access to higher level rights.
I never really thought about this until a friend asked if I got the latest program from the company I left? I asked what program and he told me xxxphotshop xl.xxx.
That made me stop and think and that?s when my head started hurting and here I am.
I guess I am asking about ethics and personal ideas, do you think it is ok to save, copy or sell things from a company that you are contracted to or employed too? I have worked with hundreds of people in the last few years and most of them were looking for easy money and the company that we were at was easy money.
