“Time to clock in, let’s see what’s on sale at Best Buy and Chinchilla’s R’ Us today” Bob from Accounting exclaimed. He tore open his Chrome browser, darted to his Yahoo email account, signed in, and BAZINGA. It was like a treasure trove of specials, coupons, incentives, deals, and so much more. Bob was in digital savings heaven. He’s been on the hunt for a few choice items for himself but also for his wife Patty, and his pet Chinchilla, Mikey. Bob was salivating. It was his moment to shine, his moment to save, his moment to break the corporate internet and expose the entire company to hackers and ransomware. Bob clicked away, from deal to deal. A happy clicker, Bob was completely unaware that the URLs he was clicking into from ALL of the spoofed emails he was viewing, opening nefarious websites, all designed to either steal his personal information OR, worse, infiltrate the corporate intranet and lock it down.
Bob needed coffee, and, the breakroom was featuring some fresh and hot Krispy Kremes, so he helped himself (three helpings to be exact) and returned to his desk to find his computer locked out. “Hmmmm, that’s peculiar,” Bob said. He tried to log in with his trusty chinchilla-related password MIKEY1234 but to no avail. “Looks like no accounting is happening today,” he thought. Bob strolled down the hall to his supervisor. “Ummm, Mr. J. Peterman, I’m having some trouble with my workstation, I’m locked out.” J. Peterman responded with a mild annoyance in his voice, “Bob, what were you doing that caused your machine to lock you out?” Bob scrambled for an answer putting two and two together that he was using company time, on a company computer, on a company intranet to shop for his wife and Mikey, when he should have been crunching numbers and doing accounting stuff. Bob thought to himself, “Self, how do I get out of this one?.” Bob had nothing. He came up with some bogus excuse on the fly: “Well, I think my QuickBooks has been acting up, it probably needs to be updated or something.” J. Peterman was not buying it but assured Bob that IT would be in his office shortly.
Bob was sweating some major bullets unrelated to the 3 Krispy Kremes he just wolfed down. “They are gonna know that I was surfing and shopping online when I should have been generating my quarterly TPS reports, CRAP.” Bob rushed back to his office to beat the IT team, but it was too late. Johnny and Caleb were already on the scene assessing the situation. “Hi Bob, what happened here?” Caleb asked. “Ummmmm, you see, I was opening a browser, trying to log in to QuickBooks, and checking my emails at the same time. Then, I got up for a minute to refill my coffee, I came back, and it was just like this.” Caleb was skeptical. He asked, “Did you happen to click on any shady links or anything? There’s a lot of spoofing and ransomware going on with all of the Cyber Monday and Black Friday deals.” Bob was getting frantic but decided he needed to come clean. “I was trying to get some shopping in for Patty and Mikey before I dove into my TPS reports. I clicked a few special coupons, got up for a second, and came back to a locked-out account.” Caleb now knew what he was dealing with.
Bob had clicked his way into some nefarious cyber worlds and put the entire company in jeopardy while simultaneously robbing the company of its time while on the clock. This wasn’t going to fly with the big boss. Here are the top-level takeaways from Bob’s little attempted shopping spree:
– Be sure to talk to your employees about risks associated with online shopping
– Encourage team members to shop on their own time, on their own computers, at home
– Educate team members about how to spot a bogus spoofed email
– Ensure that your IT team has all of the latest anti-virus updates installed
– Make certain that your computers, firmware, routers, switches, etc., all have the latest firmware updates
– Be sure that your IT team is backing up data and keeping a copy off-site in case of an emergency
– Fire Bob
At Advanced Systems Solutions, we deal with Bobs all day long and have seen it all. When your company needs protection, know-how, and expertise, it’s time to call ASSI. Our professional team of IT pros can help your team implement critical safety and security measures to keep your company running even with a BOB. Please be safe this holiday season, and be sure to call ASSI for a complimentary IT assessment. Relax, we’re on IT. Call (407) 414-6626 to chat! Happy Holidays from all of us at Advanced Systems Solutions!
