A client called my up on Friday complaining that a goup of PC’s were sluggish. Could I come and take a look?

On one of the PC’s, I did a routine check for spyware, virii etc. and also the standard registry RUN keys to see what starts up with windows. Following that I did a brief browse of what the PC had on it and was shocked to see indecent pictures of the user and his partners. The thing that got to me most was that I had just spoken to the user about 30min before my discovery and he urged me to take a good look to try find the problem. The indecent content was blaring me right in the face, in a folder on his desktop. On a personal level, I’m not sure how to take this further, perhaps I’ll speak to the user. It’s as if he wanted me to find it. Needless to say I was pretty offended. What he does on his home PC is none of my business, but on his corporate workstation that I am hired to maintain, it’s a different matter alltogether. 

There are standard ways of dealing with this sort of misuse of corporate hardware. In this case, the organisation could be exposed to a lawsuit if another user is offended and lodges a complaint. The organisation can be held liable if it is shown that they didnt take necessary steps to protect others from being exposed. I’ll be meeting with the head of the organisation soon to discuss measures that can be taken to protect them and other members of staff. He may decide to follow disciplinary action against the offending member of staff. So be it. He is the head, he is responsible for running his ship properly. He should know.

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