I’m almost finished with a book call The Insider by Dan Verton. I had semi-high hopes for this book since it’s one of the ones I nabbed from a guy I worked with when he was giving away a stash of his books. It’s been a fairly informative book, showcasing a number of insider attacks that companies and government institutions have been hit with. As I get to the end of the book though Verton has succumbed to whining about political correctness.
This is one of my big pet peeves with regards to the security industry. Security people think that corporations and government have a massive, oh my god stop everything, problem when these people assess the orgs and find porn/pics/media/etc traveling across the wire. They always make such a big deal out of the situation as if it’s a highly abnormal thing. They try to sway the top execs of the company into buying their services or products by showing how employees are wasting resources by surfing the web when they could instead be making the company millions.
As you might have already guessed, this kinda behavior pisses me off. Employees dont like their employers looking over their shoulders, and they especially don’t like their employers mandating bogus rules like “you will work 100% while at work”. Gimme a break. Nobody, not even the top execs, work the straight 8-12 hours a day that a salaried person works. Everyone needs a little downtime to refresh themselves after staring at mind-numbing work for a couple hours. When the employees reach that mind-numbed state, they take a break and do something else to get their mind off work. When they come back, they’re refreshed and more productive. Anyone who doesn’t see this is a moron.
So yeah, Verton is a moron. He’s just another one of those FUD machines that is trying to turn the job of security professional into content police. Save it buddy, I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about where my users go. If your infrastructure is solid, you’ve got bigger fish to fry than tracking down people who surf for porn. It’s like why the hell do we have so many drug busts when border security is obviously a bigger problem. Move some of the damn police down to the border. Geez, idiots.