Low-Level Staffer Blamed for Committee on Standards Breach
In case you missed the story last week, multiple lessons learned and teachable moments have emerged from an incident involving a sensitive ethics committee document that ended up in the hands of the Washington Post. The ethics document exposed numerous ongoing investigations into the conduct of more than two dozen House members.
Most articles seem to be blaming the unauthorized access to the sensitive ethics document on a low-level staffer working from home on their personal laptop using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program which provided unauthorized access to the ethics document.
Asking good questions can be a great way to identify Lessons learned and teachable moments, for example:
- How many employees/contractors have access to sensitive and confidential information?
- How many employees/contractors in your organization work from home?
- How many employees/contractors in your organization use a personal laptop for organization related purposes?
- How many employees/contractors in your organization use peer-to-peer file sharing programs?
Do you have clear policies and procedures and enforcement and consequences defined for each of these situations?
Do you have the ability to track and document awareness and accountability at the individual-level? (Or as the Ethics Committee defines it – low-level staffers?)
How do you keep all appropriate individuals updated on new risks, new regulations, new policies and new teachable moments?
Next lessons learned blog will look at teachable moments and ongoing reminders and which works better…