Not every cyber problem comes from some hooded hacker. Sometimes it’s an employee who already has the keys.

My example is from 2018, when a Facebook security engineer was fired for using his privileged access, which was meant for things like fixing bugs, to look up women’s personal information and stalk them online (Engadget, 2018). No outside attacker, no massive breach, just one person abusing trust until a security researcher called it out. Honestly, that part makes me mad.

Here’s why it matters. When people have broad access and nobody checks how it’s used, misuse has room to happen. And when the company only reacts after it hits the news, that tells you the culture is about damage control, not prevention. The women targeted lost their privacy and sense of safety, and Facebook lost more trust at a time when it was already struggling with privacy issues.

My fix is simple: log every time someone looks up user data, and audit those logs regularly for lookups that don’t match a real work ticket. Catch it early, before it becomes a headline.

Reference: Engadget. (2018, May 2). Facebook fires engineer who reportedly used access to stalk women. https://www.engadget.com/2018-05-02-facebook-fires-engineer-who-stalked-women-data-privacy.html