Avoid Data Breach: Keep Personal Software off Work Laptops
Some people don't get the need to keep personal and work computers separate. After years of consulting with multiple client issued laptops and lugging my own personal laptop around for writing after hours, I'm left wondering about the recent Pfizer data breach. It seems personal information on 17,000 employees was compromised when the spouse of an employee installed file sharing software on a company laptop storing the information.
Here are some questions that immediately come to mind:
1. Why was a large volume of employee personal information on a laptop without encryption?
2. Did the employee who used the laptop have administrative privileges on the laptop, and if so why?
3. Why was someone other than the employee using the laptop?
4. What was the purpose of the file sharing software? Was the spouse using the company laptop to share music files?
Using your employer's computers for personal use is a bad idea all around. This isn't like using the office phone for a personal call or borrowing a pen. It's hard enough to keep IT assets reasonably secure, we don't need employees making it worse. My advice to anyone who blurs the lines between work and personal lives is to spend $500 bucks and get your own damn laptop.
And oh yeah, yank the admin privileges from users who aren't admins and start encrypting.
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