Cyber technology has created opportunities for workspace deviance in many ways both nefarious and most often non-nefarious. Ranging from misuse or inappropriate use to illegal employers or anyone providing access to IT tools and resources most now not only council and notify employees regarding the technology but also employ technical methods as preventing and enforcing appropriate use.

Whether it be phones, desktops, or laptops many large and publicly funded organizations have an acceptable use policy and annual training for all employees concerning acceptable use. The policy may be a result of a customer requirement in a contract situation or a company policy. Either way developing these policies and enforcing them adds additional strain to an employer’s resources. Often these policies concern what you can and cannot explicitly use the device for. This could really cover any implementation and commonly are installed applications and software and network activity.

Employ deviance on IT systems takes many forms, many of which were exposed during the reaction to COVID. The most common form of deviance was using the IT system inappropriately. The most common harm was wasted hours that an employer paid an employee to do something other than their assigned work. The more harmful and nefarious version of deviance is data leaks, intrusions, and theft. Whether for personal gain or unfair advantage or to sell or benefit another organization, employers must protect their systems and networks from insider threat.

The insider threat is a persistent and potentially very damaging threat that is among the most challenging to mitigate. Organizations have been subjected to breaches and leaks by disgruntled employees across all sectors. A common example is the termination of any employee but without systematic and thorough deauthorization from systems and networks. There have been cases in which former employees had left organizations weeks and even months prior to their eventual unauthorized access. Organizations IT departments traditionally are underfunded, and the workforce has not met the demand across the nation.