Posted on 07/31/2007 7:47:38 AM PDT by redfish53
Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You By VAUHINI VARA July 30, 2007; Page R1
Admit it: For many of us, our work computer is a home away from home.
It seems only fair, since our home computer is typically an office away from the office. So in between typing up reports and poring over spreadsheets, we use our office PCs to keep up with our lives. We do birthday shopping, check out funny clips on YouTube and catch up with friends by email or instant message.
And often it's just easier to accomplish certain tasks using consumer technology than using the sometimes clunky office technology our company gives us -- compare Gmail with a corporate email account.
Security expert Mark Lobel of PricewaterhouseCoopers describes the most common things employees do on the internet to jeopardize company security. There's only one problem with what we're doing: Our employers sometimes don't like it. Partly, they want us to work while we're at work. And partly, they're afraid that what we're doing compromises the company's computer network -- putting the company at risk in a host of ways. So they've asked their information-technology departments to block us from bringing our home to work.
End of story? Not so fast. To find out whether it's possible to get around the IT departments, we asked Web experts for some advice. Specifically, we asked them to find the top 10 secrets our IT departments don't want us to know. How to surf to blocked sites without leaving any traces, for instance, or carry on instant-message chats without having to download software....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I applied for a job with the local city gov't IT dept when I was looking a couple of years back. Had multiple interviews, things looked good. Then nothing. Finally, after I'd taken a new position with a different company and been working there for almost a year, I got a note in the mail from the city thanking me for my interest, and that I wouldn't be a good fit for their department.
Private sector is a whole different ballgame. Self-Employed is even better.
We had an employee who visited an AUTO PARTS SITE that was hacked and infected. It downloaded a backdoor trojan, which allowed installer downloads. In minutes, his machine was swamped with popups, toolbars, fake spyware scanners like Spylocked, and then everything propagated on the network shares. Some of these defeated firewall settings and shut down AV's.
Some of the CNC machine tools were Windows Based (Are they NUTS??).
The machines were running expensive, intricate titanium parts when they went down.
We lost $50,000.
The people who write and distribute many of these are known. Nothing happens to them.
I'd have more sympathy for that position if they respected compartmentalization in both directions. (i.e. no work during off hours)
And take away your stapler.
I've also seen this tactic work well when the IT guy has no clue what the real answer is.
BTTT
I imagine that there were a lot of unhappy travellers that day. I tried calling the tech support # on the hotel's website and couldn't get through.
"I asked for a Margarita with no salt, No Salt!......"
bttt
I've got the same setup, except the DNS. I actually need it fairly often for work though, as a troubleshooting tool. It's really nice being able to just type a short string and I can verify connectivity from the outsite world to most of our websites.
I particularly enjoy reading those packets as I spread them out on my desk! My favorite ones are the packets that are secured with the little velcro tabs, because they're so easy to reseal, and nobody knows you've peeked!
Mark
They will exclude things for me also if I request them. I am a web developer/programmer and they trust (but verify) my judgement.
They aren't very savy YET. So I can check histories etc... Is there an inexpensive key logger program or do you have any suggestions on how I can monitor e-mails and web sites visits..
I have 6 computers in the house that are linked by Linksys to a cable modem. thanks for any help.
Would 18 pieces of flair express what you want to express?
Never seen those but I have watched the contents of every IM session go by in real time then get processed and sorted by user and put into a word document automatically. :)
I do the same thing to my Citrix server, at home. I can get to the outside world and come back in. It does help when I need to check on the web servers.
Of course, I can do nefarious things from there, too. But I’m a network guy, so I can change the firewall if I wanted to, anyway.
I am so glad I have a Mac and NONE of this crap has any effect other than bewondered amusement at all the problems PC users must have.
= )
“LOL... Anyway, I was looking out my window and there are two squirrels and they were married....”
Uh, I’m going to have to ask you to move your desk. Now, if you could get it to go as far back against that wall as possible, that would be
great.
Mordac?
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