We’re well aware of safeguarding against identity theft and the like, but what about hardware theft within the company? I’m curious as to how common this may be and if anyone would like to share their experiences. The reason I ask is because recently the president of my company began complaining of poor performance in his Pentium 4 Windows XP Pro PC. Perhaps it should have been the first place to look, but it turned out to be the last as I found the PC memory was registering at 128MB. I had installed 256MB last October and was surprised to find a generic 128MB strip in the PC. The president, as well as the COO refused to believe someone had been brazen enough to swap the memory sticks. I mentioned that 256MB of memory can represent one-third the cost of some PCs and reminded them of some less than secure physical factors, such as the warehouse being open on weekends with an unlocked door not only to the outside, but to the office area as well, which is not staffed on weekends. I didn’t go so far as to mention that adequate supervision may be lacking on the weekend and, although more unlikely, an office worker could have done this as well. Both the president and COO mentioned that very few people would have the knowledge to change a memory stick and I could only say, “I believe you would be surprised at what people know and how fast it can be done.” In any event, despite the fact I can document the memory upgrade I performed on the president’s PC, it all seemed to fall back on me. Personally, I think they are projecting their own ineptitude on to others and perhaps indulge in some false sense of security. Getting back to my question, how common are thefts of this nature?
