Most people have probably felt at some point that they’d rather watch cat videos on the Internet all day than do their job. According to an investigation conducted by Verizon’s security team, a mild-mannered computer-programmer in his mid-40s found a way to make that dream a reality:
The story goes a little something like this. A developer at a US-based critical infrastructure company, referred to as “Bob,” was caught last year outsourcing his work to China, paying someone else less than one fifth of his six-figure salary to do his job. As a result, Bob had a lot of time on his hands; in fact, during the investigation, his browsing history revealed this was his typical work day:
9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos.
11:30 a.m. – Take lunch.
1:00 p.m. – Ebay time.
2:00 – ish p.m Facebook updates – LinkedIn.
4:30 p.m. – End of day update e-mail to management.
5:00 p.m. – Go home.
The company had called in Verizon to investigate what it assumed was a security breach after it discovered that its virtual private network was being accessed from China. The login information being used was Bob’s, and when investigators turned their attention to him, they found “hundreds of .pdf notices from a third party contractor/developer in (you guessed it) Shenyang, China.”
Though he had received several excellent performance reviews for his clean, timely, and well-written code, Bob’s employment was subsequently terminated.