Analysts acting as seers have been prognosticating that the recession, and resulting job losses, will translate into disgruntled IT employees looking to raise Christmas or recession cash by stealing and selling corporate data. With perfect timing the Vancouver Sun reported this week that a vice president of IT at a Canadian direct marketing firm is being accused of stealing an encrypted backup tape containing names and information on more than 3.2 million customers.
He may have been earning $150k a year in the job, but this IT chief and alleged thief may need a primer in criminal mastermind do’s and don’ts. Among his alleged mistakes: He asked a junior employee to bring him copies of the backup tapes. He failed to build into his risk model the fact that the network administrator is the CEO’s son, and the news that he made three copies and only two were accounted for quickly made it to the boss’s ears.
The good news for the company is the tape was encrypted. The bad news is that apparently the keys were also stored on the tape.
