The Trust Factor

Is an employee an insider or an outsider in relation to the business he/she works in? If a director leaves the running of an entire job in the hands of one trusted employee, should he be praised for his sense of motivation and his ability to curtail costs, or should he be censored for breaking the rules of internal control? Excessive trust of an employee, or of a consultant, opens up the way to fraud and possibly negligence. The fact that fraud or error does not occur is no defence of an internal control system that lends itself to abuse and misuse. Discusses four cases in which employees or consultants enjoyed freedom in their handling of computer systems and, either through fraud or incompetence, caused, or could easily have caused, losses for the companies employing them.