Old people can sabotage software too

Software teams must act to protect systems and development projects from revenge attacks by disgruntled current and former employees. So says Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute's CERT, which is advising organizations take basic steps including code encryption, enforcement of code-change and access controls, reading …

[Anonymous Coward]

That all seems a bit excessive...

When you can just call the BSA on most companies.

[Anonymous Coward]

That news is nearly 30 years too late

Eddie Shoestring? Left his IT job after going wild in the server room?

Then took up a far more boring career in investigative radio...

When was that? 1979 apparently.

[Andy Burgess]

Actually...

I think this is ludicrous. This might be a bit idealistic, but how about working to ensure that staff don't become disgruntled, rather than limiting access and therefore limiting the ability to do the job? What disgruntles me most in my job? Not having the access I need to be effective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just software

Old habits die hard ,and some people have been using dirty tricks to keep their jobs for decades. The addition of computers doesn't change their behavior beware of coworkers/employees who seem confident for no reason.

[Markie Dussard]

Getting "let go"?

In plain English that would "fired", "dismissed" or "sacked", wouldn't it? In reality, these are not people that management were desperately hoping to continue to employ but, for inexplicable reasons, slipped through their fingers and somehow ended up without a job.

Let's not collude with those who would denature the language with management and political unspeak to distract everyone from their culpability.

An (ex-)employee does not become disgruntled without a reason.

Since I am not in that category at the moment, am I "gruntled" or "antidisgruntled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

*Not* terrorist related.

>" a 9/11 emergency phone number/address look-up system "

No, you mean a 911 emergency phone system! The emergency number pre-dates the event, you may remember...

[Matt]

Heh..

And remember, it's nine-one-one.

Saying nine eleven for the phone number went out 20 years ago when it was realized too many people couldn't find the eleven button on a phone. Anyone get the impression we really should let nature take it's course and weed out the gene pool a bit more?

[Daniel B.]

Disgruntled

In some organizations, "disgruntled technicians" might very well describe the entire workforce, given work conditions. I think these organizations should start caring about them and treating them better, therefore diminishing this risk.

Of course, security issues should also be taken into account, I know as a fact that given some security blunders, I could have caused great havoc on some former jobs if I had no ethical standards...

The vulture had a close encounter with the overworked IT staff and was mistaken for the Boss...

[Robert Moore]

@Markie Dussard

"Since I am not in that category at the moment, am I "gruntled" or "antidisgruntled"?"

I believe that makes you predisgruntled

[ratfox]

Wonder how they're gonna do it...

I think it will rather hard to stop the sysadmins from having access to the system...

And well, what if the antepredisgruntled employee is the one who is actually supposed to have access to the system?

[yeah, right.]

I like this one...

"Deny access to all non-project staff, including system administrators". I'd love that. Next time the idiot development team wants their code back after they lose it because they came in drunk on Friday and deleted the wrong revision tree in the source control system I'll be able to tell them to stuff it up their arse sideways to me working over the weekend retrieving said information for them.

Works for me. Less work.