We saw this in the LA Times.
Big firms aren’t only ones hit by system hackers
By Alana Semuels
Times Staff Writer
COMBING through the guts of the website for the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission, an information technology worker for the agency came across an intruder. Someone with an Internet provider address in Germany had broken in and looked at private information normally accessible only to commission employees.
The worker immediately shut the system down.
“The intruder was poking around and came in through the outside of our network,” said Richard Peters, the agency’s information technology manager. “They were probably looking for confidential data.”
Small organizations often think they are less of a target for hacking than large companies. But small businesses are often targeted by hackers who know that their security procedures might not be as technologically advanced as those of a bigger business with more resources.
For the entire article go to LA Times.
Corra finds surprising that so many companies will go to any extent to prevent hacking from the outside but will do so little to protect themselves from inside jobs. Whether the invaders are hackers, crackers or data thieves, when they attack it is your business that ultimately pays the price.
Surely, you should do all that is necessary to prevent hacking or cracking or data theft from cyber thieves. But you should also be protecting your business from disreputable or desperate employees who steal your valuable data, proprietary information and intellectual property. Not only do they commit out and out theft, such employees will steal passwords from other employees in different departments or on higher security levels and crack into the system.
That is why your HR department should have a pre-employment screening program in place. You should be including a Social Security Trace, a Credit Report and, naturally, a Criminal Background check. For those who have never conducted background checks before, you will find it extremely cost effective.
Don’t be caught with your guard down. Check them out before you hire.
