Journal Entry #6

Cyber technology has created numerous opportunities for workplace deviance, as it has provided employees with innovative ways to engage in unethical or illegal activities. One example of enabled deviance in the workplace is cyberbullying. Social media made its presence in 1997, but it skyrocketed in the early 2000s after blogging became popular. This led to a boom in social media platforms such as MySpace which later led to Facebook and Instagram. With the ability to connect with peers being more convenient, more people began to access social media at work. When people have disagreements on social media platforms, that can greatly affect their real-world actions. An example could be a supervisor and an employee share a friendship on Facebook, and they end up having a disagreement. They go back and forth on the social media platform until the employee backs down. Soon enough, the supervisor begins to bully the employee by leaving rude comments under their pictures and on their public wall. Essentially, you could assume that the supervisor just wants the employee to respond, which she doesn’t until the supervisor threatens the employee their position. Now if we wanted to take this a bit further and created a scenario that involves the employee retaliating, we would say that the employee could then use their position in the company to disrupt the functionality of the company. This situation would instantly be considered an insider threat. Let’s say the employee decided to use her credentials and access confidential data within the company, then she shares that data, perhaps with a friend that knows a little bit more about fraud than the average person. This instantly puts the company at risk for fraud and other risks like hacking and social engineering. It also would not be surprising if a company had employees who were uneducated on threat, except for one, and that single employee used that to their benefit.

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