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I worked in the finance industry and took the mandatory 2 week vacation and dealt with my coworkers taking the mandatory 2 week vacation. We didn't write any d

I worked in the finance industry and took the mandatory 2 week vacation and dealt with my coworkers taking the mandatory 2 week vacation. We didn't write any documentation or have any internal wiki or anything like that, and everything seemed fine. I also find it pretty questionable that someone couldn't write a computer program that can embezzle unattended for two weeks. You don't use your own credentials, you stick it in some other program and have it use the logged-in user's credentials. Are you auditing your HR system before you log in, and are you sure that the "ls" you're invoking is the same "ls" that actually came from Debian? No? Then it all seems very pointless to me.

umvi 7y ago
Has that ever happened? Seems like the stars would have to align for that kind of white collar crime to happen (financial employee who is also a highly experienced programmer who is also highly unethical)
- bl0b 7y ago
  I mean, 2/3 of those come together par for the course, right?
- alexis2b 7y ago
  A famous example is the (in)famous trader Jérôme Kerviel who was deemed responsible for a 4.9 billions euro loss at Société Générale. Having worked in Middle Office before being promoted to the Front, he had a really good knowledge of how operations and risk management worked in the bank (plus some still working write accesses to specific systems) which allowed him to mask his very large positions with fake opposite trades that he was putting in every day before the nightly risk snapshot and cancelling before they could be confirmed. The guy basically did not take any holidays in two years - otherwise his large positions would have appeared on Risk radar pretty quickly... If you are into those stories and want much more details than my poor summary I really recommend reading the SocGen post-mortem investigation. Disclaimer: I worked at Société Générale during the Kerviel era - also there is a lot of controversy in France about how much the bank knew and let things happen (Kerviel was making a lot of profits - until he wasn’t) and if that was used to cover subprime related loss - this post does not represent an opinion on this case!
- asdff 7y ago
  I feel like the stars would have to align for that kind of crime to even be found. I think it's a guarantee that it's already happening in a lot of companies. So many companies have the most sloppy book work, and regulatory bodies are stretched too thin to catch everything. If you are a sociopath who knows programming (more and more people in finance do every year) and is in finance (two fields with more sociopaths than some, perhaps), then why would you leave money on the table? You are already morally bankrupt and know how you would get caught, and therefore how to not be caught, and know that this money is going to you with zero issue.
et2o 7y ago
that is not how 99.99% of embezzlement works. No one in finance is using 0-days (or whatever) against their own companies. It would be much more "routine" types of practices, which might be noticed given minimal oversight.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  The proper way to embezzle is by making $20-$100 addons to thousand dollar purchases. You don’t want hundreds of thousands papertrailing back to you. You don’t buy a boat on the company dime you buy trinkets to put on your boat. The real embezzlers are taking $3-$5k/year. The ones taking more end upon the 5 o’clock news
maayank 7y ago
> We didn't write any documentation or have any internal wiki or anything like that, and everything seemed fine. Just evidence that documentation != institutional knowledge. It's not actionable knowledge if no one reads it.

umvi 7y ago

Has that ever happened? Seems like the stars would have to align for that kind of white collar crime to happen (financial employee who is also a highly experienced programmer who is also highly unethical)

bl0b 7y ago
I mean, 2/3 of those come together par for the course, right?
alexis2b 7y ago
A famous example is the (in)famous trader Jérôme Kerviel who was deemed responsible for a 4.9 billions euro loss at Société Générale. Having worked in Middle Office before being promoted to the Front, he had a really good knowledge of how operations and risk management worked in the bank (plus some still working write accesses to specific systems) which allowed him to mask his very large positions with fake opposite trades that he was putting in every day before the nightly risk snapshot and cancelling before they could be confirmed. The guy basically did not take any holidays in two years - otherwise his large positions would have appeared on Risk radar pretty quickly... If you are into those stories and want much more details than my poor summary I really recommend reading the SocGen post-mortem investigation. Disclaimer: I worked at Société Générale during the Kerviel era - also there is a lot of controversy in France about how much the bank knew and let things happen (Kerviel was making a lot of profits - until he wasn’t) and if that was used to cover subprime related loss - this post does not represent an opinion on this case!
asdff 7y ago
I feel like the stars would have to align for that kind of crime to even be found. I think it's a guarantee that it's already happening in a lot of companies. So many companies have the most sloppy book work, and regulatory bodies are stretched too thin to catch everything. If you are a sociopath who knows programming (more and more people in finance do every year) and is in finance (two fields with more sociopaths than some, perhaps), then why would you leave money on the table? You are already morally bankrupt and know how you would get caught, and therefore how to not be caught, and know that this money is going to you with zero issue.

et2o 7y ago

that is not how 99.99% of embezzlement works. No one in finance is using 0-days (or whatever) against their own companies. It would be much more "routine" types of practices, which might be noticed given minimal oversight.

o-__-o 7y ago
The proper way to embezzle is by making $20-$100 addons to thousand dollar purchases. You don’t want hundreds of thousands papertrailing back to you. You don’t buy a boat on the company dime you buy trinkets to put on your boat. The real embezzlers are taking $3-$5k/year. The ones taking more end upon the 5 o’clock news

maayank 7y ago

> We didn't write any documentation or have any internal wiki or anything like that, and everything seemed fine. Just evidence that documentation != institutional knowledge. It's not actionable knowledge if no one reads it.