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When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

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Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#41

Post by enraged_camel »

philipodonnell wrote: post #36

> The CIO admitted that he had been approached and explained that he had informed the VP that IT already had a project with SAP to deliver what the VP needed. “Yes, but that won’t be ready for me to use for three years, and I need something today,” retorted the VP. The CIO was silent. Then the CEO asked the VP, “I’ve known you for ten years. You don’t seem like someone who would do something to harm the company. Why…

>>Any company doing a 3-year SAP implementation is a very large company.

Not at all. I have a client with ~100 employees who are past year 2 of their Salesforce implementation because the director of technology keeps changing priorities and project requirements.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#43

Post by x38iq84n »

brixon wrote: post #25

Let's ignore the SaaS security issues for a second. When IT says "No" it's not like the area asking is going to go away and not try to solve their problem. Organizations are going to find ways to solve their issues and IT can either help from the beginning or help clean up the mess later. I try to take the stance of offering the right solution and a lot of the times a now solution at the same time. There is no saying…

I have seen IT being unaware of and unwilling to meet requirements of highly specialized technical teams, such as network engineering. You cannot have a TELNET client because the use of TELNET is prohibited by corporate policy, test TCP connections another way. You don't need vim when you have vi. You can't have admin rights but we don't support drivers for RS232 dongle so nope. Sometimes it's quite a challenge to get some work done.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#44

Post by ConfusedDog »

maxxxxx wrote: post #22

This is exactly extremely common. In my company there is this constant battle about the devs having admin rights on their machines. We need admin rights to do our job. We have had dozens of meetings explaining the situation but IT can’t come up with a solution so the devs go around security because they have no alternative if they want to finish their work . Same with Dropbox. They block it but we have suppliers who…

I entirely agree with you. This is the same idea in the Greatness video by David Marquet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q)

Try to control everything is just futile. I think hiring and retaining best people is the best countermeasure to this sort of things.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#46

Post by cannonedhamster »

raxxorrax wrote: post #31

> If you don’t think this is happening in your organization, think again That story probably never happened anyway. But the essence of the article is very true. I never have been in a corp where IT enforces 100% conformity anyway (apart from medical industry). Sure, there are actual successful attacks, but that is mostly not the fault of unsanctioned programs. But there are systems where people should not just start…

I've been in corporate IT where this happened. All company apps were built internally. None were able to run on anything past Windows XP. On top of my regular help desk, asset management, software project, and lease refresh program I was also somehow supposed to make the software work with Windows 7 as they had let the developers go. This is the same company that refused my sane security requirements and ignored just about everything until too late. I hear they have since outsourced IT and networking and it's failing dramatically, but they are saving money right?

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#47

Post by rb808 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #22

This is exactly extremely common. In my company there is this constant battle about the devs having admin rights on their machines. We need admin rights to do our job. We have had dozens of meetings explaining the situation but IT can’t come up with a solution so the devs go around security because they have no alternative if they want to finish their work . Same with Dropbox. They block it but we have suppliers who…

I think most of the reasons for admin rights are no longer valid. Its easy to change user environment variables and lots of applications can be installed as a user. Why would you need admin rights?

Dropbox/googledrive is a huge security hole that is definitely blocked at most companies I work at.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#48

Post by exabrial »

maxxxxx wrote: post #22

This is exactly extremely common. In my company there is this constant battle about the devs having admin rights on their machines. We need admin rights to do our job. We have had dozens of meetings explaining the situation but IT can’t come up with a solution so the devs go around security because they have no alternative if they want to finish their work . Same with Dropbox. They block it but we have suppliers who…

I really wish some big shots in the security world would write an ISO standard or something stating how harmful blanket 'block Dropbox' policies are for the reasons you list.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#49

Post by lzol »

S_A_P wrote: post #21

I see this a lot in consulting. When a new CIO (or CEO or other C level) arrives, they want to make their mark with a digital transformation intiative. This usually just means that the new C level employee is coming into a medium to large business and would like to add a bullet point to their resume and get that new shiny object everyone is talking about. Tableau, Salesforce, Data lakes, blockchain, ERP, Identity Man…

This resonates so much and seems to be a major trend in non-traditional tech companies. I've mostly worked in the financial industry and the executives' knowledge of technology is almost always horrible. As you said, a couple buzz words and very set opinions on the ways to do things. It's like they get pet projects in their head from reading an article in a magazine and get locked into it.

I don't really have an issue with CXXs being ignorant about a subject. No one knows everything. What I do have an issue with is when they act like an expert ignoring all the people who are actually experts in a particular area. It'd be like me going into a room full of IT people and saying EBITDA a bunch of times claiming to be an accounting wizard ready to lead a major initiative. It's frustrating but I've learned all I can really do is smile and watch the show.

Re: When Employees Use Software That IT Hasn’t Approved

#50

Post by jmkd »

Joining Google was an eye-opener for me on this. Was the first time I encountered an IT department (TechStop) that didn't act like a police force and instead had your back, helping you get where you needed to be. Was always the first thing I would show guests on a tour of the campus.
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