Cisco: IT Security Policies are Too Soft for Gen Y
Cisco: IT Security Policies are Too Soft for Gen Y
Posted 12/15/2011 at 5:29am
| by Paul Lilly
20
Comments
Print
Young employees determined to log onto Facebook or bounce around the Web are going to do so, in part because they're motivated to get online and frequently ignore IT policies, and also because the policies in place simply aren't tough enough, according to a global study from Cisco. Seven out of 10 young employees outright ignore IT policies on a frequent basis, and one in four is a victim of identity theft before the age of 30, Cisco says.
Cisco believes the high rate of identity theft among young people could be a direct result of loosening privacy boundaries. What's more, over a third of employees surveyed responded negatively when asked if they respect their IT departments.
"Of those who were aware of IT policies, seven of every 10 employees worldwide admitted to breaking policy with varying regularity," Cisco wrote in its report (PDF). "Among many reasons, the most common was the belief that employees were not doing anything wrong (33 percent). One in five cited the need to access unauthorized programs and applications to get their job done, while 19 percent admitted the policies are not enforced. Some (18 percent) said they do not have time to think about policies when they are working, and others either said adhering to the policies is not convenient (16 percent), they forget to do so (15 percent), or their bosses aren’t watching them (14 percent)."
The report is filled with alarming statistics, such as 33 percent of college students saying they don't mind sharing personal information online or think about privacy. This attitude carriers over to the workplace, where three out of five employees believe they aren't responsible for protecting information and devices, and instead it's the IT department and/or service providers who are accountable.
More like this
20
Comments
Comments are closed on this article
Ghok
December 15, 2011 at 12:03pm
"Seven out of 10 young employees outright ignore IT policies on a frequent basis, and one in four is a victim of identity theft before the age of 30, Cisco says."
...why would these two be related?
I could see many reasons where they could be, but could think of just as many why not.
TechLarry
December 15, 2011 at 11:47am
Personally, I think Draconian IT policies on a weak network are far worse than reasonable IT policies on a well designed network.
jgrimoldy
December 15, 2011 at 12:57pm
Yes, but who is the arbiter of "reasonable" vs. "draconian" ?
Users that do not have local admin access on their laptops get torqued because they can't install Skype or iTunes, or WildTangent games. "ummmmm, and the business justification for these is what, again?...... <silence>"
Any time we try to keep folks from screwing the pooch, they complain that we're being draconian. Hey, buy your own damn laptop for $300 if you want Skype and iTunes. Your work laptop is for WORK. It's why the word, "work" is there.
compro01
December 16, 2011 at 7:13am
And what's the point of that since I can't have said personal laptop with 10 miles of the office?
jgrimoldy
December 15, 2011 at 9:50am
I used to be certain that the bulk of Gen Y would all be über computer savvy, in the same way that many kids knew how to program a VCR back in the early 80s. I was positive that 80% of Gen Y would be able to field strip and rebuild a PC.
NOPE!
They're mosly dumber than a bag of hammers. Yeah, they know hip, cool sites to visit. Whoop-dee-doo! The lion's share of young-uns can't configure a cheap wireless router, don't know what the hell "virtual memory is", etc. So much the better. There's good money to be made by fixing their fuck ups.
Maxxron
December 15, 2011 at 3:13pm
We're not all idiotic. (at 27 am i gen Y? /shrug)
What it all stems from is shitty parenting and education. Parents are way too passive with their children and states/countries are always finding ways to skimp out on education funds. I mean why educate the masses when stupid people are so much easier to herd?
Technology classes aren't mandatory (lol typing classes) in high schools and the classes they do offer rarely - if at all - teach students the ramifications of their actions online in or out of the work environment. My younger sister in HS is in full honors classes and not a single one of them is tech based. Yet all I ever hear from her and her friends are, facebook this, iphone that, yada yada yada. Cool, you know what these things are, but are you aware of what they can potentially do if you just stupid your way through them?
With the amount of technology driving our society, it's an outright atrocity that these types of tech based informational studies aren't featured for young students.
rawrnomnom
December 15, 2011 at 12:53pm
Lol. we prefer to be called the pokemon generation, and I agree... I love stupid people with computers, as they pad my income considerably. But some of us have an idea of the differnece between storage and memory.
Slurpy
December 15, 2011 at 8:08am
So what portion of that 1 in 4 figure has had identity theft committed, not because of THEIR mistakes, but because of a lapse in bank or website security, a la PSN? Since the 18 to 30 demographic is also the one most likely to conduct regular business online, I bet that's a big part of it.
ABouman
December 16, 2011 at 11:58am
I'm wondering how many of them also lose ATM cards in bars and phones in taxi cabs and the like.
Wingzero_x
December 15, 2011 at 7:25am
Then you got the dumbasses that go into Best Buy, where they have displays and find that the display computers are on line so what do they do...Log into Facebook, and leave...
Some people are fortunate I am not an evil man!
t.y.wan
December 15, 2011 at 6:32am
My personal experience is "SOME" of the policies are just plainly stupid.
When I was in middle school, why can't I go on the super restricted internet after 12? Are you serious?
When I was in high school, why is the proxy constantly glitching out and banning random stuffs? Why even watching youtube in the weekends is prevented? Gaming, as well, obviously.
When I was in university, why do they have to ban games? You can't play games but major pornography sites are available? And streaming music videos are not permitted?
Now, at work, you would have to ban skype, msn and other IM? Making me taking the elevator just to deliver couple of powerpoints and simple messages? (while emails are slower and they might not notice it "immediately".)
I don't care if you ban stuffs, just make sure they are reasonable and after office hours, just don't be a jacka**.
Softwares, you have to do what you need to do. It just needs to be done.
Wareagle
December 15, 2011 at 10:47am
I worked at my College's IT department when I was there, and the reason we usually blocked things was because they were using too much bandwidth.
We also didn't have the option of buying a 4G card for our computers like you kids do now, and our cell phones were just phones, with B&W screens.
Get off my lawn! :)
kixofmyg0t
December 15, 2011 at 6:23am
This is the same generation that believes all you have to do is "not visit bad websites duh! use common sense"
Makes things fun for me!
big_montana
December 15, 2011 at 6:13am
And this is exactly why resources such as Websense exist, to protect people from themselves. My firm does not grant full internet access to everyone, as most employees have restricted access, and can only access those sites that have to do with their job, even Google is on the banned list. Even those that have full internet access do not have full access, as they cannot access social networking and any sites deemed to be software download sites, as we use Websense to enforce our internet policies when attached to our domain. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do when mobile users hit the road, as even the best anti-virus and malware scanners are only as secure as the person using the laptop.
BluePhoton
December 15, 2011 at 11:05am
I hope your company is not in a technology or innovation-related field, nor one that pays people to actually think...
The internet is one of the most innovative, economically inventions that has transformed the world, and it seems your company believes protection of people from themelves is more important than improving thinking. Perhaps respecting ability of MOST people to balance would lead to a better workplace environment.
BTW: I'm writing this from work, on a quick mental break, and am about to be mentally refreshed and ready to dive into my next work efforts...
LeCappitan
December 15, 2011 at 10:26am
Can you SSH into a server, open a portable browser and use a 127.0.0.1 as the local network, and use that to gain access to those sites at work? I know I was able to do so at college and get to restricted sites.
big_montana
December 15, 2011 at 10:37am
Nope, every is on hard lock down. We task our IP group, which some are IT grads to break our security. Some have found holes, which we than proceed to patch. Not saying we cannot be breached, as I do not think any network is 100% secure, but we do make it difficult.
reutnes
December 15, 2011 at 3:11pm
Get a VPN, man. Make sure it has international services... $10 a month VPN is worth it just for the BBC iPlayer alone. Tunnelr will go over port 80 if you tell it to, and no network will have http blocked.
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
The gang discusses the GTX 690, Trinity, Ivy Bridge, Amazon, big-box stores, MMOs,...
This month's issue
Feature
Build a PC On Any Budget
Feature
Cloud Services Showdown
How-To
Encrypt Your External Drive
Build It
Upgrade an X58 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Original RickRoll Video Returns to YouTube After 24-Hour Copyright Hiatus http://t.co/MaH9Sxyy1 day 5 hours ago
- maximumpc: Corsair has decided not to go forward with its $78 million IPO, citing weak equity market conditions http://t.co/A5a4DAzj1 day 5 hours ago
- maximumpc: Want to work at Maximum PC? Our Online Managing Editor, Alex, is moving away, so we need a new one. http://t.co/9Z7JCh0E3 days 3 hours ago
