One-third of IT Professionals Have Snooped on Co-Workers

From SANS NewsBites Vol. 10 Num. 50 (June 19, 2008)

According to a survey of 300 IT professionals, nearly one-third have abused administrative passwords to look at confidential information about their co-workers. Close to half of the respondents also said they had accessed information that was not related to their positions. Just 30 percent of administrative passwords get changed every quarter, while nine percent are never changed, meaning that even people no longer employed by the company can gain privileged access to the system.

ZDNet
Survey press release (not full results)

This is the perennial problem of who do you trust. IT workers have a special place in a workplace - they are the people who keep the systems running. As such they need access to all areas of those systems, including the data stored on it. They have to be trusted. If one third have violated that trust then things are in a sorry state indeed.

Let us also not forget employers that cannot be trusted.