Whatnot At Work

Data Held Hostage

Be careful about your web based HR systems.

An online patient care system has denied over 100 doctors access to their patient's accounts. According to one customer-doctor, there was nothing in her contract that said she would lose access to her patient data if she didn't pay for technical support. When the company raised the technical support from 1,200.00 to 5,000.00, she didn't renew and her access was then promptly cut off.

It would be pretty disruptive if you lost access to all your employee records.

Robotic Receptionist

Chinese scientists have invented a robotic receptionist that knows 1,000 Mandarin chinese words.  Her name is Rong Cheng. She can dance, bow and greet people. She cost about $37,500 dollars to make, less than the total compensation for a receptionist working in the US. According to salary.com, the median salary plus benefits for a receptionist is $40,124.00. So forget outsourcing, you may be replaced by a robot in the near future - and he or she may be cheaper, smarter and better looking than you. Yikes!

Workplace Privacy - Not!

A recent federal court case ruled against an employee claiming his surfing habits at work are private. The employee was director of operations and was busted for downloading obscene material at work. The judge in the unanimous decision stated:

Social norms suggest that employees are not entitled to privacy in the use of workplace computers, which belong to their employers and pose significant dangers in terms of diminished productivity and even employer liability.

He said other courts have consistently ruled that employers are entitled to monitor their workers' use of computers as long as they had disclosed that policy to their workforce.

A key element in this case was the fact that the company did notify all employees prior to the incident that:

1. Their computers were company property.
2. They were not to be used for personal activity,
3. and they were subject to monitoring.

The court sited a 2001 American Management Association study that found more than three quarters of American firms monitor employee communication on the job, both email and phone.

The judge summed up with, "Employer monitoring is largely an assumed practice."

Laptop Explodes At The Office

BoingBoing has some pictures and background on a laptop battery that exploded at work. According to the post, the exploding battery phenomenon is not restricted to laptops - there is an account of a PDA doing the same thing, along with links to other occurrences.

Smart Phishing Gets Us All

A new study at Harvard shows that 90% of participants were fooled by fraudulent phishing attempts. Phishing is using fake websites and tactics to trick people into entering passwords or other sensitive information. They discovered that the existing security in browsers is ineffective because they are ignored, misunderstood, or easily spoofed. They are proposing a new and clever idea: use a secret image that only the user knows as the background for username, password entry. If the image is not there, the user knows the site is fake. The concept is called Dynamic Security Skins.

Laptop Security - Lojack

A lot of the data theft I wrote about previously was from laptop theft. Two things you can do to lower your organization's laptop risk: encrypt the data and add tracking software to your laptops. If the data is encrypted, it will take the thief time to figure out what, if anything, of value is on the laptop and more time to get at it and exploit it. Tracking tools work like Lojack for your car. They send out messages to a monitoring service once the pc is connected to the internet. The monitoring service can work with police to locate and recover the laptop, or your IT or Security department may be able to handle the location and recovery.

Squirrelly Citations

A Florida man (not a squirrel) was issued citations for:

• squirrel at large,
• squirrel on the beach,
• squirrel defecating or urinating on public or private property and
• squirrel disturbing the peace.
  

A new employee at the police station entered the information from a complaint incorrectly and the notices were automatically generated and sent.