Wanted: Enlightened Management
by Celine Roque
Policing employees to ensure network security is tough enough for IT, but when the risk is way up on top, it compounds the whole situation. Company executives usually hold the most sensitive data in an organization, and according to an article on New Scientist, they are also the most vulnerable to threats. One of the reasons for this is that it’s difficult to get them to adhere to IT policies, such as the prohibition of unauthorized software. As Pentagon expert Glenn Zimmerman put it, “But woe betide the lowly IT director that would inconvenience the CEO with such restrictions.”
Yael Shahar, a cyberwar analyst from Israel, suggested that IT personnel should hack these executive’s computers from within the network, if only to prove a point (desperate times call for desperate measures?). While this may, in theory, open the bosses’ eyes on how vulnerable their systems are, I highly doubt there are many would-be “white hat hackers” who would risk their jobs in this fashion, given the state of the economy. Although, with prior notice and other arrangements, it may actually work. In the end, an IT department’s best friend is an enlightened management.
As we’ve seen many times in the past, trouble arises when people in power think they’re above the law – or, in this case, their own company policies. One comment said it best: “I doubt seriously that there will ever be a technological solution to a sociological problem. The problem is with people, not their tools.”
