HI Everyone,
This post was inspired by our conversation on the KubeKorner about my (in the past 😁) using notepad and vim to great text files with info, how to’s, solutions to issues. I reminded me of all the times that I have seen people do the same for passwords that are tightly stored away in password managers or other locations that require “extra effort” to gain access too.
This made me think back to my career and the many incidents where I saw shortcuts taken in order to be able to work more effectively because of strict security measures.
The most hilarious thing that I ever saw was at one job where the security team were on steroid. There was a door to a confidential location that would automatically close and lock after you typed in your very long and annoying individual code on the small panel. The problem was that you had to do this to get in and to get out. However, the toilet was on the other side of that door. Out of frustration the workers would jam the door with a broom handle so that it would not close and by then hanging at it reverse its movement. There was also an alarm that would go off if the door would not shut but one of the bright techies created some kind by metallic pass thing that would stop the alarm from triggering. Whenever there was a boss type around or important guest, everything would be put back into place and people would suffer. The issue being that under pressure you could constantly get your code wrong and since the washroom was your destination…. well.
Have you seen security procedures being so strict that they inevitably make sneaky humans find short cuts? The copying long passwords from a password manager to a text file comes to my mind since I encountered quite often.
