NEWS: Study Examines Motives For Corporate Sabotage

A study published by the United States Secret Service and the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University examines the motives of insiders who purposely sabotage corporate computer resources. The study found that many instances of corporate sabotage were motivated by individuals interested in exacting some kind of retribution against their employer for real or percieved wrongs.



Sabotaging the company's IT infrastructure sure can create some havoc, but at least it's not as bad as going in to work with a weapon and shooting the place up.

The acts that affect national security by damaging important systems are disturbing, though.

The full text of the study is linked below.

Related News Links:
www.cert.org

The results of this study were spectacularly aligned with my own assumptions before opening this link. "Retribution" as a prime motive? Who would have guessed?!

I am sure many other members (corporate saboteurs or otherwise) will have the same reaction.



[edit on 22-5-2005 by MaskedAvatar]

Hmm. Looks like common respect, tolerance, kindness, compassion and the like are not just 'nice,' but smart too. Astounding revelations.

Yeah, not particularly surprising. I was a little interested to see that the Department of Homeland Defense had a role in funding this work.

Perhaps they were expecting to find political or ideological motivations behind some of the actions?

I guess this is just one more thing a harried manager has to think about between sexual harassments, racial ephitets, etc.

It looks to me as though government is trying to redefine the term "corporate sabotage," towards employees, when in fact most all corporate sabotage is one corporation against another. One might imagine corporate sabotage is for competitive advantages, for example one corporation simply cannot compete against higher quality from another corporation so it destroys or takes it over. It is a fight for inferiority in products through superiority in dirty tricks.

On another front consider how corporations such as the Carlyle Group take over distressed Defense contractors, when their government influence suffocates these perfectly good companies. Then it takes over and suddenly through that influence you have the perfectly good company you already had under new ownership.

Score another one for big business silence on its own activities and its announcement of problems from the "little people." So it's all Guliver's Travels, if you will and redefining the language.

[edit on 22-5-2005 by SkipShipman]

Seems like nothing more than trying to garner public sympathy or provide some rationale for increasing security measures for Corporations. Paid for by the Department for Homeland Security - aka tax-payers.

What sabotage to a corporations I.T system affects National Security??? Shouldnt the bigger issue raised here be that corporates have access to systems that are vital to national security?!

Yet another study that took time and money to produce the results that common sense made available to millions of people.

Revenge, and money. Just about the most common motivations for any sort of betrayal-whether it be abandoning personal principles, becoming a traitor, or shafting a previous employer.