I recently saw an incident where an employee at an agency component told her staff to send emails to her at home. No big deal if she was using government equipment all the way. Trouble is that this person was responsible for buying things and reimbursing people so she had names, credit cards, etc. What made it an incident was that she directed these folks to send the information to her Yahoo account. "It's MY email account and no one else can get to it because I use a good password". I can't say what happened to her but in my opinion it wasn't harsh enough.
We can have the best written policies, outstanding detection and prevention technology, and leaders who understand that risk management is the way forward but if we don't have tangible disciplinary discretion how can we wake people up to the fact that we are only one click away from undoing every security measure that we put in place?
It's not like we don't design training programs to get the word out. My feeling is that 90% of the people that come to work are borderline zombies. For them it's just a matter of showing up getting the bare minimum done to collect a paycheck so they can sit in traffic for 3 hours only to go indoors, sit more, watching television with mindless drool flowing out of the screen and completing more chores. Followed by wash, rinse, repeat. An endless cycle of routine and work. I think I heard on the HBO fictional show "Oz" one of the characters talking very much in the same way about prison life.
I look into the eyes of the people I see on the street and what I see is blinding ignorance. I was at one of the better pizza places here in Denver and was chatting up the hostess. (yes with the mostest and I was wearing my ring) She asked me what I did and got into a discussion on my favorite topic "personal security" to which she replied as I have heard a hundred times before "I don't care" and "what would anyone want with my information" going on she said "what's the difference anyways I'm broke they can take it all."
I don' know how long this has been going on but I am certain that we live in a culture of indifference. Indifference to one another and to ourselves. American's don't seem to care about the "how" just the "now". Living for the next "Mocha - Latte - frothy - soy - Ventti" sugar buzz to the next instant download followed by hours of mindless cr@p instantly accessible on a DVR while continuing the ongoing festival of gluttony consuming the latest iteration of the deep fried "corn chip" that unto itself is the same corn chip that was consumed a year ago but has a "new and exciting" packaging that makes it easier to inhale these chips with one hand only while in the other hand wash all of those chemicals and preservatives down with a high fructose corn syrpe beverage loaded with enough caffeine to kill a small cow which incidentally is the next generation of slaughter house product.
So before you click and send that next email or click on the next ballet please for the love of all that is still good in this world think about it. Are you just buying some repackaged, rebranded, piece of c#ap? Are you about to expose your entire organization or even your family to risks that you don't even fully understand yourself? So please people think, I know it's hard and all you want to do is curl up on the couch and "relax" but don't do it. Don't give up and choose to spend the rest of your life as the walking dead. Don't do it for me, don't do it for your family, don't even do it because living a full life is better than living an empty one, choose to think because if you don't you might as well be dead now and you're not helping anyone else by choosing that.
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