Forensic Audit Shows Agency’s Staff Used Their Work Computers for ‘Personal Gain’
November 12, 2014IT Policy Suggested after Forensic Audit
November 13, 2014Written by Adam Andrzejewski
In a rural Illinois county, an IT forensic audit of government computers allegedly turns up porn, theft of services, bid rigging, campaigning, running personal businesses, political fundraising, surfing sports websites, and thousands of Facebook posts, dating and shopping website hits.
The decline toward lawlessness begins when a community tolerates minor violations of public order – vandalism of abandoned structures, turnstile jumpers, and the like. Left unchecked, small offenses turn into more serious crimes. This is the Broken Windows theory of criminology.
Thanks to the courageous leadership of a county chairman, Rod Copas, in rural Iroquois County (100 miles south of Chicago in mid-central Illinois) a recent IT forensic audit of government computers released yesterday provides alleged evidence backing this theory.
An analysis of four employee computers by Garrett Discovery Inc. in the health department allegedly turned up hundreds of downloaded porn images, 3,000 hits on shopping websites,1,400 hits on dating websites, and 7,600 social media- Facebook posts/comments. The analysis also found evidence of a public credit for private use, bid rigging, running personal businesses, campaigning, and political fundraising, not to mention google searches for grossly inappropriate and explicit terms and 10,000 google searches for key words such as cars, makeup, apartments, sports, Disney and clothes.
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