Patch: Files Missing from City’s Server
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 12 January 2011 — 3 comments below »
Just another day at the office… “A large group of electronic files went missing from the City’s main server last week, prompting a police investigation.”
The Contra Costa Times reports the files include “project files, redevelopment agency files and general-type files,” according to the City spokesperson.
General-type files?
No surprise here! Most corporations and government agencies upon “firing” an employee, observe them gathering their personal belongings and escort them out of the building…no opportunity to cover their tracks and erase incriminating evidence. Oliva had quite a long time to destroy documenation; that would be my guess.
As an IT Manager for an engineering firm, when we terminate an employee, I disable their access to the network and other services during their termination meeting. The employee is given their two weeks of pay and they are kindly asked to exit the building.
It would be wise to back up all critical files at the City, now, before more goes missing. And if anyone is suspected in the disappearance of these files, I recommend pursuing an internal investigation, one that has teeth. This can happen to any City where there are disgruntled folks, wanting to take revenge. I agree with Atur’s suggestion above. I would also limit access to important documents to only those who really need it, prevent copying of deletion of key documents, (read only access) and or have a tracking method, so that you can quickly have investigators find out which computer accessed and downloaded or printed the missing files. It’s do-able. We should be able to know, fairly soon, who took the documents. Prevent further sabatoge, it’s probably someone trying to cover their tracks or hide their own improprieties.