Offshore, outsourced, IT: Conspiracy?

A quiet trend my friends, but a dangerous one.

Your hacker hating Oceania citizen has discovered this company: www.lilly.com..., is about to move 400 of it's IT (Information Technology - computer operations) to an outsource firm in India.

This is a growing trend among US and European corporations looking to decrease the costs of maintaining a large, sometimes dictatorial, internal IT department.

Given the nature of the most recent Internet attack by the hated and loathed hacker culture, does anyone else see the danger of this trend?

I firmly believe the SQL Worm and Code Red Internet attacks are test runs of something much more sinister and damaging. More than ever, national security is tied to the strength of the economy. How well do you suppose corporations with offshore, outsourced IT services will be able to withstand serious digital attacks?

Disturbing to say the least.


Opinions?

[Edited on 31-1-2003 by Winston Smith]

As the economy flounders and companies hunt for ways to save money, outsourcing the IT department has become fairly popular. We went through this phase about 10 years ago, too.

Personally, I think it's a Dumb Idea. Speaking strictly as a geek/analyst, the company may be dead-on honest and reputable, but the minute you let your data get out of your hands, you're setting yourself up for trouble. Companies and government agencies have ended up with a scramble of programs and data and no local IT staff to support the users or the programs when something goes wonky... or help if the Wonderful Company Doing The Data suddenly goes bankrupt.

In fact, the City of Dallas is in the process of learning this very important lesson... again (according to a friend who works for the City of Dallas.)

There are things you could and should outsource, but data control is most definately not one of those things.

Question Winston. Do you have an opinion on who may be behind these internet attacks? Do you believe it is the chinese, or that they are being set up to look like they released the viruses. Interesting to note, that the hardest hit in the last attack was Korea. And of course why?

[Edited on 1-31-2003 by William One Sac]

Korea (South) was hit hard because it is currenlty the "most wired" society.

I believe it is the Chinese, who are taking advantage of "attack technology" developed and shared by the global hacker culture.

A coordinated digital attack could temporarily cripple societies with a high reliance on digital infrastructures for days, or longer. The risk is that the attacking country would also be subject to damage. Ask yourself which societies are in danger, and which could derive advantage from such an attack.

Now ponder, with such risk on the rise, why would corporations disseminate digital infrastructure services?

An intriguing puzzle.

I own an IT consulting practice. It has been a trend for several years; the offshore aspect for less time. As you can imagine, it falls apart at several stages of the project life cycle contingent upon human interface and quick response.
A trend over the last 1.5 years: onshore outsourcing - the IT market has been so devastated that the Architect level talent is taking Junior rates after being out of work for months; giving the outsource company the business acumen of Yankee client interface AND cheap delivery.

Of course, any company that outsources their IT to any kind of contracted Operator just *may* wind up hiring somebody like THIS:

bofh.ntk.net...

It's quite a long read, but definitely worth reading at least part way through...

This thread from over 3 years ago is still pertinent today...Don't things ever change?