Deviance can easily be defined “as the fact or state of departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior.” Workplace deviance can happen at many levels of professional careers that have proven to be impactful to the integrity of the company and employees. I’m sure we have all have witnessed a coworker abusing a workstation by watching YouTube or reading a sports article while at the job, right? Having access to a device that connects to the internet is right at our fingertips in this modern age, however learning to comply with company protocols pertaining to the cyber safety of servers and sensitive information is imperative to the thriving success of any business’s main focus. Another prime example of workplace deviance is an employee sending inappropriate (NSFW) content on a workstation that could possibly have a link to malware or malicious code to negatively impair the device. I believe that this would be considered workplace deviance because it deliberately goes against the company’s expectations of their potential employees. The fact that cyber-crimes do not happen in person, gives the criminal an advantage of their identity never being compromised. This in fact, has dramatically risen the rate of cyber-crimes committed against small businesses through the roof in the past decade. Criminals are performing at an all-time high and understanding the motive behind why a criminal targets certain companies can help deter these actions from happening in the future. Ensuring that these attacks are caught in a timely manner can prevent a serious attack from spreading within the organization. Just think about all the damage an insider threat could possibly cause if given the proper amount of time to infiltrate the database of a company that isn’t properly protected. Overall, it is impossible to counter every attack, but an affirmative plan held in action will most likely spread awareness to employees to safeguard their sensitive documents which will prevent the misuse classified information.
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