Back when I was still working on the manufacturing floor at my previous job, I discovered an issue while working out an issue with label printing. The current head of IT manages a lot of the operations with Microsoft Access. If you press F11 on a keyboard, it will show more of the user interface than is normally available.
All the backend tables not only display themselves but are connected with full privileges that allow the operator at the computer to pull all the information from the database and show it right on the screen.
I saw a table that indicated it contained social security numbers for employees of the company. I opened the table, expecting to be denied access or ask for a username and password to authenticate. Instead, I was greeted with all the details of all employees that have worked at the company- first name, last name, address, social and who knows what else. Shocked, I close Microsoft Access and bring this to the attention of the head of IT. I asked him to meet me at the computer where I discovered this and showed him. He looked at me and said, “No one is going to figure that out” and walked away. He never mentioned it to me again.
I was dumbfounded, but I figured he would think about it for some time and change some things to make that data unavailable.
Years go by, and I check to see if he had fixed it. He had not. I decided to tell my current boss about this, who suggested I go tell the CFO of the company, who was supposed to be the head of IT’s supervisor. The CFO acknowledges what I said and writes something down on a yellow post-it note, telling me he would “take care of it”. Shortly after this time I was sent to the Strongsville facility and promptly fired for absenteeism.