Instructions: Add additional insight to these opinions or challenge the opinions. Use real world experience to support your views, as appropriate.
1) No industry is safe from corporate espionage just ask the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball fame. The Astros were the victims of corporate espionage performed by an employee of the St Louis Cardinals organization. Lasting through parts of 2013 and 2014, the espionage occurred when an employee of the Cardinals accessed Houston's internal "Ground Control" computer database (HNGN, 2016).
In the article I chose to review this week Jason Eaddy, a digital forensics expert at Stroz Friedberg, explains how the espionage was uncovered through the use of digital forensics.
Once it was discovered that unauthorized access of their internal system had occurred, Houston needed to determine exactly how an outsider was able to compromise their system. In comes digital forensics and an organization like Stroz Friedberg to conduct an investigation of the incident.
Stealing intellectual property is no joke and the penalties if caught can be quite severe. Some of the questions the article posed included how was the perpetrator tracked down, how was the hack conducted and what are the consequences of this type of activity (HNGN, 2016). Jason Eaddy broke down exactly how the Cardinals employee was able to hack into Houston's system.
It started when another Cardinals employee had to turn in a laptop owned by the Cardinals as he was leaving the organization for a position with Houston. The password for this laptop was also turned over and the Cardinals employee used this information to guess the password that allowed him to access the outgoing employees new Houston email account (HNGN, 2016). Eaddy goes on to explain that due "Ground Control" being a web based program the Cardinals employee was able to gain information that aided him in hacking the system (HNGN, 2016).
Eventually Houston changed the URL and user account passwords for "Ground Control" due to security concerns but failed to require email password changes. This allowed the Cardinals employee to once again access Houston email account which had emails containing the user's new password and the new URL to the system (HNGN, 2016). The result of this attack was the Cardinals employee gaining access to draft and scouting reports, analytics and many other trade secrets for the Houston Astro's organization.
Thankfully a digital forensic investigation allowed Houston and law enforcement officials to catch the perpetrator. The penalties for corporate espionage can be stiff. In this scenario the results after a plea deal amounted to well over a million dollars that the Cardinals employee would have to pay in damages to Houston.
2) I chose an article about employee internet abuse by Dr. Young, 2011, titled Internet Abuse in the Workplace. I chose this topic because this is a topic that tends to irritate me and I have personal experience dealing with this topic from multiple perspectives, as a customer, an employee, and from a managers point of view as well.
Internet abuse in the workplace is a continually growing issue throughout many organizations. Studies have shown that employees are using the internet in the workplace during working hours for extensive personal and inappropriate use (Young, 2011). Depending on what research you review employers state that employees are spend between one and three hours a day surfing the internet and web on personal business while at work (Heathfield, 2018).
In an effort to combat employee internet abuse implementation of software monitoring and employee acceptable internet use policies have proven to be ineffective measures to stop employee internet misuse and abuse (Young, 2011). Among top abuses of internet use in the workplace were listed as being viewing pornography, online gambling, investing, watching sports, and online shopping (Young, 2011).
There are a multitude of reasons organizations attempt to limit the "surfing" of the internet by employees. One major concern is the financial cost in productivity lost. Individuals misusing, or over using for personal use, the internet at work was previously estimated to cost billions of dollars in lost productivity annually (Young, 2011). Another reason employee internet abuse is such a concern is because it is a way computer and network systems are vulnerable to attacks.
Through inappropriate sites, clicking on unsecure links, and downloading unsafe files and "cookies" an organizations information systems become vulnerable to infiltration. Significant concerns can arise for information integrity, database security, and networking functionality (Young, 2011).
Overall training and education has helped reduce incidents but does not stop completely employee internet abuse. Even though there is software out there to monitor use and to block and prevent access to certain websites, employees have a knack of finding their way around these preventers quite often.
My own personal experience with employee internet abuse has been varied by position and employment location and status, but has had far reaching effects. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I go into an office and a subordinate is supposed to be working on a project and instead they are on a social media website, like facebook, or watching videos on Youtube, delaying the product they are supposed to be completing.
Although I do believe there is a time and place for web surfing and personal actions while at work, work should always come first while at work, and any allowed surfing should be a privilege used wisely, not a right expected by an employee. I am a big fan of user agreement policies, and an even bigger fan of direct harsh consequences for violating such agreements.