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Young Employees Pose Increasing Risk to Networks
buzzardsbay writes "Baseline is reporting on an upcoming survey from Symantec and Applied Research-West that confirms many suspicions about the generation gap in the workplace, namely that younger workers will use your corporate network to run most any device, technology or social networking software they can get their hands on. Dubbed "Millenials," these workers born after 1980 are nearly twice as likely to use cell phones and PDAs at work, and half admit to installing unauthorized software on their employer's computers. On the upside, the Millenials are more security aware than their older co-workers."
isn't it the company's responsibility to control their network?
- Do it but don't admit it
- Or don't it but are way less productive than their peers
I don't know how it is for the rest of the slashdot crowd but almost everywhere I've worked it's impossible to be (decently) productive using only authorized software.
The sad thing is not a matter of cost, but a matter of paperwork. Something as basic as winrar (no, let's not go into why would I want to use winanything) is impossible to get by the official channels.
They are more likely to play on your lawn. Make sure you yell at them from your front window. Damn kids.
Most people born after 1980 are treated like shit in the IT industry. You are taken on for pitiful wages with vague promises of future riches, squeezed for every bit of knowledge you have, then booted out when the project(s) you are working on are finished. So it is hardly surprising that people treated so shabbily don't have a particular commitment to their workplace.
Most of the highly technical and well paid jobs (system admins and the like) seem to be already taken by well established old folk, and nobody is really interested in training anybody for when they retire. Managers take IT systems completely for granted, consider IT professionals to be lowly peons, and are in for a nasty shock when the handful of people keeping their systems running leave.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Looks like the title is overblown. The younger works do slightly more risky things than the older workers. However, the older workers (Gen X in this case) still do all the same things, just a little less often. None of the numbers suggest a big change in risk. A lot of the risk factors being described just go from numbers like 47% to 51%. Hardly anything dramatic.
If you want to secure your network, you need to address all the risks that are out there. Adding a little more risky behavior does not really make for any real changes is the risks to the network. Networks are always at risk from the weakest link. A 60 year old employee who happens to do something risky is just as bad for the network as a 20 year old.
give their passwords on the phone to whoever asks. I've seen it happen. Security is an issue that effects us all. Shouldn't single out the young people on this one.
They are more aware. They just don't give a shit. :-)
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
They're also less likely to call IT with problems like "I'm trying to make an Internet on my desktop but I can't get the file to program."
I don't care why you're posting AC
This just in... young people are more likely to use iPods and PDAs than old people. Film at 11.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
What exactly does "unauthorized software" mean?
My company doesn't give me administrator privilages, but has IE 5.5 installed. They haven't told me exactly what I can or can't do with my computer (except "you can browse the web in your down-time, but don't look at porn"), but I don't think the people that immediately oversee me know enough about computers to understand installing programs and stuff (really, it's pretty amazing--they don't even know that IE 5.5 is different at all from whatever they use at home).
The computer won't let my upgrade IE, so I installed Opera and Firefox. Is this "unauthorized software"?
Now, let's go a step more complicated.
They said I can browse the web in my downtime, right. So I figured I can also download and view MIT physics lectures (yes, Walter Lewin). My computer doesn't have proper codecs to view these videos. So I had to install codecs, but the computer is very resistant to that--it took a lot of trial and error to find a codec that would install and also play the videos.
Did the larger amount of work to avoid the problems associated with a lack of administrator privileges make this "unauthorized"?
I've also tweaked the registry (this is Windows 2000) because there were several programs starting with the computer that I have no use for. "Unauthorized"?
I'm in my mid-20's so I think I would fit into this "generation" gap and want to comment on this. And no, I'm not at work presently to post this, in case the inescapable irony strikes some readers.
I know some of my peers feel that simply having access to the Internet means they can use it during the workday either to take a break during the work period, not work at all or use the Internet on breaks. My friends don't do this but I have had co-workers who have and were generally disciplined and eventually fired for not doing their assigned work.
Personally, I feel that I have an obligation to my employer: 1) to do the tasks I am assigned and 2) to protect the information on their networks. I avoid using the Net at work for non-work tasks and social networks for these reasons.
Of course you can, their routing number is 666, but you still run into the problem of getting the account number of whoever you are sending the money to. Also the dollar is incredibly weak against souls right now, so it's pretty expensive.
This article appears to be taking a stupid slant on the statistics that have been gathered. It keeps harping about the "Millenials" (people born after 1980) when really it should say "people in their 20s". My issue is that 20 years from now, the Millenials will be in their 40s, but it will still be the people in their 20s who are the greater risk. The Millenials are not a generation of risk takers, they are currently at the risk taking age.
When I was in my 20s, I was much more risk prone than I am now (in my 40s). Back then I considered it my *right* to be able to install whatever I wanted on a computer, and would be unconditionally annoyed and offended if it was not allowed. Today I am more aware that there are reasons for most restrictions. Yes, some restrictions don't make sense, but a very many do.
This type of thinking was in more aspects of life than just computers. Back in my 20s, I would say that I drove less cautiously than I do today. I drank more heavily, ate poorly, resented having to wear a bike helmet, jay-walked more often, the list goes on. These are all behaviours that I, and most people, grow out of.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I'll remember this article next time that me, born in 1982 has to go round removing all the shareware games like Kyodai that all the middle age helpdesk women have decided to install on their computers because the 40 yr old manager we have thinks they should be free of security restrictions even if it causes such problems and creates security risks for the network.
Or when I'm dealing with silly amounts of calls because one 40+ yr old colleague is stood outside on their mobile phone arranging with their wife who is doing the cooking and the other is browsing holiday sites deciding where to go on holiday next.
Articles like this are stupid, they're a generalisation and where I work it couldn't be further from the truth. 3 out of 4 of our 1980s+ born workers and 1 out of 12 of our pre 1980s born workers make up our best 4 workers, that's completely out of line with the articles findings and whilst I realise you always get anomalies from statistical samples you should also not try and dress up this kind of bullshit as general fact.
In fact look at TFA, as hard as that is when it insists on jumping to the next stat before you've had chance to check the page properly I don't notice any information how solid a test base they used.
For all I know this could be put together by some disgruntled middle aged worker who actually sucks bad at his job but like many would rather blame someone else and so decided to blame the younger generation for taking his work.
Anyone know how reasonable a test base was used for this study? As it stands I could equally put together a made up study claiming older people are more likely to steal from the work place and pass it off as being fact.
I'm not a 'milleniumial', I was born in the first half of the 20th century. When I work for a company, they want two things: productivity and security. Security means that I'm not going to harm the company physical property and co-workers. Productivity means that I produce more of what they sell than it costs them to pay me.
Two paracitical factors inhibit this arrangement: the IT department and the human resources (legal) department. The cousin ITs believe that they can build a framework according to their training that will make us all be more productive. The HR believe the same with a different framework. But since neither of them are engaged in the primary productive activity that makes the enterprise profitable, the inevitably screw it up. In a million little and not so little ways. So we fight back.
Case in point, in the USA the politicians and insurance companies have fucked-up the health care industry to the point where most employers will not hire people in order to avoid providing health insurance. They hire people on 'contracts' creating a class of permanent temporary workers. This is especially common in the electronics industry. We work some place for six months, then work another place for six months, etc... If we get sick, we point a gun at the head of some supermarket manager and have him give us the cash in the safe. It's the new American way, it will happen to you, so don't judge me for what I must do. I don't want to hurt anyone.
Anyway, we bring our own tools to new jobs. Our software programs that we customize and modify that will maximize our productivity. Tools like text editors, spreadsheet macros, graphics and CAD design programs. I'm going to spend forty hours learning CADbozoCAD when most of the industry uses BozoCAD, just because your company got it a 10% discount? Fuck that!
I'm going to put BozoCAD my computer that I work with. I'm going to create works and convert the results into standard formats. I'm going to ignore as much as possible any previous work done in any non-industry standard format. Is there a risk to your company network and even maybe the BSA Microsoft thugs? Possibly, but...I...don't...give...a...fuck. If you hire us and provide health insurance like all companies do in the rest of the civilized world, then I ( and the millions like me in this situation) would be more sensitive to these concerns. It's one of the unforseen issues that results from using perma-temps as your workforce.
Most production managers realize this and accept it. Most cousin ITs and dumb-as-shit Human Resources people don't. Because it doesn't fit into the frameworks that they built. But my paycheck depends on the companie's bottom line and as a production worker, I create that.
So it is a constant three-way battle between the cousin ITs (the information technology department of the company who maintain the company network),the perma-temps, and the HR lawyers. They ALWAYs believe that by firing us, they maintain control and security. But they don't provide the product that keeps the company in business. Their departments are not profit centers for the company.
So the game just goes around and around. This is why I have come to hate the IT department in any company. HR people are too stupid to be concerned with, and lawyers aren't human so don't waste emotional cycles on them.
I will step to put a bit of perspective on this flamefest and tell you something I heard somewhere (unfortunately I can not site but someone here will certainly correct me). The paraphrased quote went something like this:
"The difference between Americans and British is that Americans believe their country is wonderful and is the best one in the world while the reality is that it is terrible. On the other hand, Britons are always bitching about their country without realizing their life is actually pretty good".
I can tell you from my experience in the UK (I've lived in the UK for about 4 years, coming form Mexico) is that you people over here have it really easy. Shit, people can just stop working and the government will pay them money. "spare some change mate?" you see people selling the "big issue" and then they go to cash their check to get beer. That is being poor in this country. Let me tell you, you do not know what the fuck you are talking about.
For people in the UK life is really easy right now. It is, really. You have a hell lot of things which you take for granted. You whine that you can not get a free dentist. Oh shit, but you do not see that in other countries and in other times (even in your country) there is no free NHS even for a freaking Nurse.
So as other people already said, stop whining and go back to fucking work you lazy ass.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
he chose to blame insurance blah blah... but the fact of the matter is temp agencies ARE becoming massive massive employers for white collar jobs. the early temp agencies were for blue collar jobs, but now it's spread to white collar jobs and, yeah the company usually doesn't hire you because replacing you with another temp instead of hiring you is 'cheaper.'
I have heard of many many places that now use temp agencies almost exclusively. The reason why white collar jobs are going to temp agencies, is because they can staff the positions like lightning and have them ready to be restaffed when the people have been on contract too long, and you get a really good idea of where to put certain people because of the tests the temp agency runs... I know some of this stuff can be done with a normal HR department, but it boils down to cost, temp agencies get the worker to do the same job for less pay, even when the temp agency takes a certain cut of that pay.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html