1 In 3 Sysadmins Snoop On Colleagues

klubar writes "According to a a recent survey, one in three IT staff snoops on colleagues. U.S. information security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT professionals, and found that one-third admitted to secretly snooping, while 47 percent said they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role. Makes you wonder about the other 2 out of 3. Did they lie on the survey or really don't snoop?"

Comments

No Ethics

[Bandman]

It's a damned poor state of affairs that so many people put in that situation of trust betray it.

I've been a systems admin for the better part of a decade, and the only time I've ever accessed the company's assets are when it was warranted.

The same goes for user files. I'm not going to snoop through other people's files. Really, I don't care what boring files you keep, just that they don't fill up the partition they're sitting on.

Do that, and suffer my wrath.

Re:No Ethics

[dtml-try MyNick]

Humans are curious by nature.

If you forbid someone something and grant them acces to it 9 out of 10 people *will* take a look. Combine that with the powertrip most people get when put in a control position it get's to good to bet let alone.

For those reasons alone I never trust any sysadmin anywhere, period.

At work or anywhere else I simply asume some admin will read my email on a bored day and I simply asume he will browse through my files the other day.

Re:No Ethics

[kc9fyx]

I have to agree with that. Sure, I could look at my user's files, but why would I want to? There's no doubt that I'd see things that no amount of eyebleach would fix. So long as nobody's filling up the server or causing me to get phone calls from network security, I'd rather not know what they're doing.

Re:No Ethics

[Southpaw018]

It's not even the eyebleach that's required. It's that peeking through peoples' files will undoubtedly reveal something you shouldn't, aren't supposed to, or (in the case of purely personal information) don't want to know or have no need to know. And once you know it, you have a responsibility to safeguard it - moral, most importantly, but legal as well depending on its nature. Who wants to safeguard other peoples' personal information for no damn reason at all?

Re:No Ethics

[stableos]

I can't manage my own workload well let alone having the time to snoop around everyone else's crap.

Re:No Ethics

[foobat]

would mod you up if I had points. Yeah i snoop through you files... as in, I run a search to see if you've decided to backup your ENTIRE itunes collection, Hi-def tv series, pictures/videos of your boring family, install massive programs to your home directory that i installed centrally on the file store 4 months ago or other entirely pointless files that do not need to be backed up and is eating up half of that space ON OUR REALLY EXPENSIVE SAN STORAGE otherwise, your files are boring and I have much better things to be doing.

Re:No Ethics

[omeomi]

At work or anywhere else I simply asume some admin will read my email on a bored day and I simply asume he will browse through my files the other day.

It's probably a good assumption, but I have to admit I'm surprised the number is as high as 1 in 3, considering that getting fired for snooping on others' email or files is something that could probably cost you your entire career. Who would hire somebody as a sysop who had been caught snooping?

Scary

[Itninja]

I know a place where they have'nt changed the root/admin passwords in years. They have so many servers that it would be "a huge pain" (their words exactly) to change all the passwords. I wonder how much of a pain it would be for a former DBA or sysadmin to snoop around and start publicly posted how much everybody makes?

Sysadmins mostly honest

[fyoder]

So in other words, a significant majority of sysadmins are honest. Given that they have "the keys to the kingdom" in the words of the article, that's pretty impressive.

Re:And?

[LordSnooty]

How do I know that the monkeys in Personnel aren't firing up my salary details or absence reports for the hell of it? Techies too have to trust people who have access to information just like they have to trust us. If someone is found to be abusing the access and earning some gain, action will be taken I'm sure. But overall it has to work on trust, or we'd all be drowning in audit trails.

Re:They have a life

[gedhrel]

Agreed. The "makes you wonder" comment makes you wonder about the professional ethics of the submitter.

There are three basic reasons why sysadmins don't snoop, in increasing order of importance:

1. It'd get you fired.
2. There isn't time in the day.
3. Basic bloody professional standards.

My institution recently underwent a long (very long) pay restructure. At about the point where things were finally settling down, the DBAs were hauled in and "reminded" that exposing or snooping through the resulting data would be a Bad Thing. My instant reaction was, "that's a fucking insult;" didn't think much of the middle-managers involved in passing on that message for not standing up for their staff. However, I think the reflection upon the personnel staff who issued the memo in the first place is that they are greasy, underhanded slime balls.

So no change there then.

Re:Which is worse?

[malkavian]

I've been a sysadmin for ages (started on that track in the early 90s, so a good 15 years already), and can honestly say, I can't be arsed to snoop people. The only time the records are examined is when I'm officially requests to investigate at the behest of the directorate, with agreement of HR and if appropriate, the relevant unions.
Part of the reason being that I am too damn curious, except not in the "curtain twitcher" way of spying on people around you. I'm always probing the systems to see if they're happy or not, and seeing if I can tweak them to be more secure, or perform better.
I'm also happy with my illusions of them being pleasant, professional people with no hangups or problems (unless they enter the 'mates' category, in which case I either ask, or listen, or both). Saves a lot of friction, and lets me get on with what needs doing.
The biggest reason though, is that I think the world should be a better place than it is. I like my privacy, and think it's something valuable. Therefore, I show people the respect I think they should have, and politely decline to riffle through their private information. If I can't meet my responsibility for privacy, I have no business claiming the right.
There comes a point where it's asked "Who watches the watchers..".. And I'd have to say they're damn poor watchers if they can't watch themselves.
To be a sysadmin in a sizable environment, you need people on your side; you need them to trust you, and have a bit of faith in you.. Otherwise, the first big disaster that happens (and we all know they do, no matter how much you plan), you WILL be strung out to dry by everyone with an axe to grind, rather than having their support and help at the time you need it most.

TFA == crap

[Sun.Jedi]

Strictly from the P-O-V of a UNIX admin.

1. 300 is too small a sample. Far too small.
2. No breakdown on size of shop per admin. My SA/server ratio is 1:100, which means very little time. (I MAKE time for /. -- shutup :P)
3. No breakdown on 'admin' roles. If this is a mom-pop-shop admin survey, then I guess it makes sense. Cisco riders can't touch a server in my shop. Neither can the Domain/AD Admins.
4. MSNBC? Now -theres- credibility. ::eyeroll::
5. These shops obviously don't log admin activity. Someone needs to watch the watchers.
6. I am not a snitch. I don't get paid to snitch.
7. auto_home FTW, baby!
8. 1 out of 3 survey topics are meaningless.