The ultimate solution for company data loss…

Nov 10

ErinRubbish, Work No Comments

Or your money back!

Sounds like a pitch for snake oil medicines. 😀

Tonight I opened my company mail and I found a curious memo about a new guideline about backing up data on company owned machines. The first though that entered my mind was “WTF, another roadblock for doing backups?”

Reading the memo, it made some sense if you apply some common sense. And then I tried reading it from a “Security Expert slash Manager extraordinaire” perspective who follows everything by the book and then my world shrunk by a magnitude of ten. The phrasing combined with current practices is enough to give me the shivers if I think about embarking in a simple task of performing backups.

In line with the company’s commitment to protecting client data, effective immediately we are implementing the following process for backing up data on company-owned machines (desktops or laptops):

You may not back up any sensitive data residing on a company-owned computer (Laptop or Desktop) without permission of the IT Support team and obtaining a signed form. Only encrypted back ups are allowed, including copying files to flash media or CD.

Not bad eh? Not until you read that you need a very high approver before you can even think of performing a backup. If you need an analogy then think of the company as ruled by a god and you need the approval of the high priests. That approval is now on top of soaking one’s self in gasoline, rolling in live coals, and dancing a cha-cha number on top of broken blades and glasses.

To top it all, the last sentence was like adding insult to injury:

Further details will be released this week, as the IT Support team mobilizes to handle this task.

Yeah, I am brimming with confidence that the over-worked and ticket-closing trigger happy support team is able to take on this new task while spreading cheer and world peace. I am saying goodbye to backups then. I think it is easier to just slaughter some chicken and offer it to my anito to protect the company data that I am working on from sudden glitches and electronic crashes.

ciao!