| What can the people at your company helpdesk | | | | Others don't know that IT employees can see |
| see? Most likely everything. Here's a story that | | | | everything. You need to take notice and |
| shows the naked truth about what your helpdesk | | | | responsibility for what's on your company PC. It |
| people might be looking at. | | | | can affect your reputation or even get you fired. |
| I had just joined the helpdesk team of 16 people. | | | | I have come across documents with social |
| I noticed right away there was a lot of time to | | | | security numbers, maiden names, credit card |
| burn. The helpdesk didn't spend a lot of its time | | | | numbers, and even images with a copy of a |
| helping computer users. They mostly browsed the | | | | drivers license. All of these can be used for |
| web all day. They would share downloaded | | | | identity theft. I've seen email to mistresses and |
| movies and various humorous web sites with one | | | | email including a sexual dialog. It's a good thing our |
| another. One day I saw about 5 guys standing | | | | IT team wasn't into blackmail. |
| around a desk gazing at the computer screen. | | | | How do you protect yourself? |
| They were looking at the contents of another | | | | Keep personal items off your company PC. If you |
| employees PC. This particular employee was a | | | | connect to your company network from home |
| woman who decided to purchase a Handspring | | | | via a VPN connection, that PC you use can be |
| PDA with a camera. Among the artsy photos she | | | | searched too. Deleting email isn't good enough to |
| had in there, she also had pictures of herself, | | | | make sure it's gone for good, but it helps. It's |
| naked. How embarrassing. Upon further review, | | | | best not to use your company email account for |
| the PDA software had been uninstalled from the | | | | personal dialog because it is backed up and any |
| PC long ago. However, the data was kept intact | | | | email can be undeleted. However, be aware that |
| as most software uninstalls are designed not to | | | | even your personal web mail can be viewed if |
| delete data. This woman spent months with this | | | | you are viewing it from work, although it's not as |
| stuff on her PC. Little did she know that the boys | | | | likely to be viewed as internal company email. |
| up in IT were enjoying her photography almost | | | | If you have certain documents that are personal, |
| every day. | | | | but you must keep somewhere on your PC, try |
| There are all kinds of things you can find out | | | | storing them in a folder that isn't obvious. This |
| about a person from getting documents from | | | | makes personal files more difficult to find. |
| their PC. Email, forms, pictures, letters to family | | | | Snoopers are more likely to try to find things in |
| members, anything on the computer can be | | | | your My Documents folder rather than a folder |
| found by any IT employee with admin rights. | | | | named "Terri's School Work". Make the folder |
| Some people choose to be lazy about items kept | | | | name as uninteresting as you can. Also use |
| on their PC. They say "What do I care if they | | | | ambiguous filenames if possible. |
| find a letter I wrote years ago to my mom?" | | | | |