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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

#201

Post by pmorici »

lnanek2 wrote: post #125
pmorici wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't this kind of thing be a problem for the managers to address? If you just circumvent this kind of nonsense instead of addressing it head on it just proliferates and allows the people who promote it to think they are doing an acceptable job. At minimum you should inform your direct manager of the situation so they can address it or accept the consequences that the work that depends on the restricted resource…

I've heard security management say it is their job to say no all day. They definitely don't care about preventing work getting done. They will only get fired if a data leak occurs, etc.. Preventing work won't even ding their promo outcomes.

That's the point of telling your manager and letting them deal with it. Ultimately the business needs to make money or show some result. If the company policies prevent that then their cost benefit needs to be evaluated and that is a manager's job. "No" is fine as long as a conscious decision is being made with the consequences in mind. That way your security person isn't saying no to Dropbox access they are saying "No" to the successful implementation of the CEO's #X priority for the quarter or "No" to 10% additional revenue for the company or whatever.

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

#202

Post by ownagefool »

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…

Digital transformations can be great. The problem is, anything great will be sold to you by consultancies as a way to give you more consultancy services, which is kind of the opposite of what a digital transformation should be.

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

#203

Post by deanCommie »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #119
lzol wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 issu…

You'd probably really appreciate this comedy sketch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

Clients don't know what they want and don't know how to describe what they do want.

That doesn't mean they're wrong.

Actual experts get to the root of what they need, and find ways to solve the requirements, even when they seem impossible.

Mandatory response viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7MIJP90biM

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

#204

Post by padraic7a »

fancyfish wrote: post #140
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've consulted for a big bank which blocks most file sharing sites and also blocks you from attaching scripts, server logs, etc to emails. Luckily, S3 is not blocked. I set up a bucket and have them upload to the bucket, which I then download on my own computer. Mission accomplished. Just getting free Windows applications procured and installed on the company laptop takes several layers of approval, emails back and f…

I work for a local government department. Must try your S3 workaround. I swear sometime I think our IS dept are playing jenga, they just pull random services at will. Today I couldn't update our website because the proxy settings allowing me access the login page somehow changed without notice. Last week they blocked USB access to machines without telling anyone who backs up to external 8tb drives. Tomorrow who knows what they'll decide. And it doesn't make for a secure environment! Everybody tries to figure out workarounds. Staff actively try to undermine security policies. It's a total disaster.

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

#205

Post by Macha »

flurdy wrote: post #135
drevil-v2 wrote: post #30

I still shudder thinking about my time working as a developer on corporate IT locked down IBM leased laptops. Every time I did npm install I needed to request admin access to Windows which took 2-3 hours to action by IBM team sitting on the other side of the world in India. One day a grey beard took pity on me and installed a Linux VM where I was admin, copied the security certs from the Windows host and I could acce…

Yup, back then my way around corporate locked down Windows machines was to only get permission to install VMware Workstation or Virtualbox. Then fullscreen Ubuntu in a VM from then on. Slower but no restrictions. Even better when Workstation supported multiple screens.

Honestly on my work machines, though we have root, the difference in FS performance tilts in favour of VMs/containers due to the slow endpoint protection affecting native FS access, and for a lot of tasks we do that outweighs any virtualisation overhead.

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

#206

Post by kelnos »

rb808 wrote: post #164
maxxxxx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound exactly like every other IT guy who doesn’t understand what we are working on. We then explain everything to them and usually they disappear and are never heard of again. That is, until the next guy shows up a year later and the cycle repeats.

I was a dev in the 90s and the start of the 2000s and always had admin rights. I dont need it any more. If you really had an edge case that requires admin rights I'm surprised. If you really need SQL server on your workstation you should think about using a different database. If your company says you have to use SQL server and you have to have it on your workstation and you need to reinstall it regularly and you're…

You're basically saying, "I don't need admin rights anymore and can't think of reasons why anyone else would, so clearly you're wrong, don't know anything about your work, and don't need admin rights either".

A dose of humility might be in order.

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

#207

Post by Macha »

hartator wrote: post #78

Isn't IT something from the past? I would expect people knowing how to use a computer and what they need to do their job.

When MacOS borks itself in an update because the endpoint management software does something funky with partitions, I'd rather delegate that to a team that's handled three cases of that this week and get on with my job description than diagnose the exact steps to resolve a problem that'll often require access I don't have anyway.

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

#208

Post by finnthehuman »

fphhotchips wrote: post #74

How many years since The Phoenix Project and this conversation has barely moved an inch? CIO probably wins this battle and gets the VP fired, but will be mystified when they're reporting to the CFO or a Chief Digital Officer when it happens 3 more times by the end of the year.

>How many years since The Phoenix Project and this conversation has barely moved an inch?

People are still fighting the lessons in The Mythical Man Month; it's gonna be a while.

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

#209

Post by user5994461 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #192
user5994461 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the VM is isolated. That's exactly the point of a VM. An account inside a VM will only let you play in that VM. Whereas your account on the host is available and automatically granted access to all machines, fileshares and services on the active directory network. If it got admin rights, then you've got admin pretty much everywhere.

“Whereas your account on the host is available and automatically granted access to all machines, fileshares and services on the active directory network. If it got admin rights, then you've got admin pretty much everywhere.” Nonsense. You can have local admin rights that work only on one machine.

Nonsense, there are endless ways to escalate and pivot once you get local admin.

That being said, there are indeed restrictions that can and should be set on admin rights. Not that IT would know about it or that it would limit pivoting much.

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

#210

Post by ct520 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #29
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…

All you are writing sounds exactly like my company.

Ditto. Working in the enterprise industry I can relate to a lot of what SAP is talking about.
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