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Antiwork

New job, got blamed for a data breach which went back years

For 6 months I have been working at a multinational corporation many of you will have heard of. When I started I was given comprehensive handover notes from the person I was replacing relating to key tasks which were now my responsibility. One of these tasks was to send some data to an external agency. Having followed the handover notes (to the letter), I sent the agency the data and cc'd in my boss and director (as per the instructions). Shortly afterwards I get an email from my director accusing me of a serious data breach, as I had sent too much data to the agency apparently, and they ordered me to immediately call the agency and tell them to delete the data and resend it. I told both my boss and director that the instructions mentioned nothing about sending less data, but they both said it should have been…


For 6 months I have been working at a multinational corporation many of you will have heard of.

When I started I was given comprehensive handover notes from the person I was replacing relating to key tasks which were now my responsibility.

One of these tasks was to send some data to an external agency. Having followed the handover notes (to the letter), I sent the agency the data and cc'd in my boss and director (as per the instructions).

Shortly afterwards I get an email from my director accusing me of a serious data breach, as I had sent too much data to the agency apparently, and they ordered me to immediately call the agency and tell them to delete the data and resend it.

I told both my boss and director that the instructions mentioned nothing about sending less data, but they both said it should have been obvious that I should not (it really wasn't).

I called the agency and they agreed to delete the data. Out of interest, I asked them if they had previously been sent all the data. Apparently, they had been sent the entire datapack for years, even before the person I replaced.

I fed this back to my boss, as it meant the data breach went back years, and given how seriously my director had taken it, I figured they would want to know.

I never heard anything about it again, because my boss and director 'swept it under the rug'.

Why?

Because they were the ones who let this data breach go on unnoticed for years.

It's fine if I look incompetent, but heaven-forbid they do.

I've been here 6 months and I have loads of stories like this. I am currently looking to leave

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