Word of the Day: rogue employee

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms |March 15, 2017

rogue employee A rogue employee is a worker who undermines the organization that employs him by failing to comply with its business rules and policies. The rogue worker might openly flout company rules, which may mean he won't remain in the position for a long time. On the other hand, a rogue employee might covertly subvert the company while attempting to escape detection by appearing compliant -- in which case he might remain on the job for an extended period of time. A rogue employee's actions might be relatively innocuous or serious enough to pose a risk to business continuity. In the worst-case scenario, a rogue employee is an insider threat, actively working to undermine the organization, possibly engaging in industrial espionage and sharing sensitive corporate data with a competitor. Even if the employee's actions aren't intended to cause harm, however, situations involving any significant number of employees can have a serious impact. The current trends of IT consumerization and bring your own everything (BYOX), for example, mean that consumer devices and applications have invaded the business environment, complicating and problematizing both administration and security. The word rogue probably originates from the Old Middle English slang roger, for "a begging vagabond pretending to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge." The first citations of the phrase "to go rogue" come from the 1920s, in reference to lone elephants that broke away from the herd and began to behave destructively. Quote of the Day "The ultimate threat remains one that most IT managers choose not to even think about: the rogue employee or contractor who compromises security either inadvertently or intentionally." - Craig Mathias   Trending Terms business continuance insider threat rogue IT industrial espionage shadow IT BYOx   Learning Center Rogue activity thwarted by early warning systems Learn how to frustrate rogue employees at financial services firms. Protect your network and data from internal threats Internal threats can pose just as much of a problem as external threats, so it's important to remember to account for vulnerabilities in both avenues of attack. Cybercriminals, rogue users cause DaaS security concerns DaaS security concerns such as hackers from competing companies, disgruntled inside employees and users with unsecure browsing habits can all put your hosted desktops at risk. Defend against internal network threats Security software helps protect your network from the outside world, but what if the threat is internal -- a rogue employee, for instance. Defend against internal network threats with this tip. Building staff-related disaster scenarios for BC/DR exercise planning Develop effective staff-related business continuity and disaster recovery scenarios in your BC/DR exercise planning by focusing on the sudden loss of more than one key person. Writing for Business Most major security breaches ____________ human error. A. can be attributed to B. are due to Answer       Stay In Touch For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com   Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed!   FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2016 TechTarget. All rights reserved.