Businesses Held Hostage

[ponto]

Recent problems in Bracken County (http://www.maysville-online.com/articles/2007/01/05/local_news/3068wordimperfect.txt)point out the need for local business owners to stay on top of employees use of office computers.

Software publishers long ago anticipated that key employees could hijack a business if they got upset and wanted to bring daily activities to a standstill.

Another recent episode in Maysville left a business unable to access company information for 3 days while the office manager and the owner were at odds with each other.

And to this day, it could happen again because the owner refuses to confront the employee.

The simple act of setting passwords and access to top level programs would make any type of transition of employees run smoothly.

The problem arises when owners are afraid to confront an employee about their use of office computers.

If a business owner has concerns about what employees could do in the event of a termination or hostile departure, you should consult a computer security expert.

Just the act of bringing an outside 3rd party into the office mix will take care of the problem and give the business owner control of his office information.

[Chuck]

A phone call can recover that deleted data, recover past passwords and set a security standard that protects the data.

[Foxy]

Yeah a phone call to the Chuckmeister.. and his elite staff of computer experts!

[mark]

A phone call can recover that deleted data, recover past passwords and set a security standard that protects the data.

...........you go git 'em Chuck!! ...........see ya mark

[kcredden]

That's the beauty of linux/Unix. With a root password, nothing another employee does can disable the system forever. (Unless they make a virus that totally wipes the system AND the backups but that's very unlikely.) So for example, if I was a disgruntled employee, and I locked out files, or something, the boss, or sysadmin could get into the system and fix the problem easly. Of course, if the sysadmin IS the disgruntled employee, well you may have a problem... In that case, I think the highest levels should have the root password.

- Kc

[Jeremy]

The actual problem with disgruntled workers isn't security as even passwords set by employees that no longer work there can be circumvented. The problem is the data loss. That's not a computer problem so much as an office management problem. A low tech fix is to have a policy to regularly backup important data to an external location (burn it to disk and give it to the manager, etc.). That prevents a disgruntled employee from doing any serious harm because damage only goes as far as the last backup.