Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Intersection of Can and Shouldn't

Every IT staffer knows that there are times when technology supports capabilities that can make a solution work, but which shouldn't be implemented. A co-worker phrased that nicely recently - "that's the intersection of can and shouldn't".

What intersections of can and shouldn't have you run into? My best example recently? Overly helpful helpdesks.

Often, help desk staff have access to a lot of data, allowing them to assist with various cases and events. Unfortunately, this leads to the inclination to be helpful outside of the scope of IT technical support, and can lead to additional risk exposure for an organization. In this case, training has to overcome the highly ingrained inclination to be helpful - something that help desks are designed to do.

Oh, and just because you can fix NAT issues by using your inline IPS or other packet filter to change them to the correct IP doesn't mean that you should...

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