One in five companies have experienced insider sabotage or security fraud by a member of the IT staff, according to a new survey of 400 IT administrators by CyberArk. Of those companies, 36% say the IT employee delivered privileged information to a competitor.

Overall, 33% of IT workers admit they’ve used their administration rights to access confidential information, such as HR records, customer databases and layoff lists.

To make sure your business isn’t the victim of sabotage or theft, here are some tips experts recommend:

• Perform reference/background checks — Checking applicants’ history is one way to keep out IT staffers who might abuse their access privileges.
• Make sure the rules are clear — IT employees can be more likely to violate policies than other employees because they have a better idea of how to get around technology controls. That’s why it’s important to have rules about who can access what and discipline people who break them.
• Restrict access — Employees should only be able to view data that they need for their jobs.
• Change passwords — Passwords should be changed regularly and be complex enough to stay unpredictable. That’ll reduce the likelihood of unauthorized employees (or even ex-employees) accessing things they shouldn’t.

A recent study in the UK found that by far the heaviest drinkers were those employed in the media, but IT staffers aren’t far behind.

The study, by the country’s National Health Service, found that media workers consume the equivalent of more than four bottles of wine (or more than 19 pints of beer a week).

Media folks drink an average of 44 units a week, around double the recommended limit.

The maximum recommended alcohol consumption for men, according to NHS, is 21 to 28 units a week –- three to four units a day. For women, the maximum is 14-21 units a week – two to three units a day.

People in the profession also drink 10 units more a week than the next heaviest drinking professionals –- IT workers, who also consume more than the recommended limit, with 34 units a week.

Next on the list are service-sector workers at 33 units, and people in finance, insurance and real estate at 29 units.

People working in education, transport and travel are the country’s most moderate drinkers, consuming an average of 24 units a week, although that’s still above the recommended limit for women and around the maximum for men.

For evidence, take a look at the number of visa petitions the feds had received at this time last year and then check out the number they’ve gotten to date. The number this year is down by a third.

Despite this lower demand for overseas workers, foreign students are still looking to stay in America — many suppose because they already have jobs and want to be able to keep them.

The U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) started accepting H-1B visa applications on April 1. Last year at this time, it had gotten 163,000 for the 85,000 available visas.  (That included 65,000 visas for foreign workers with at least a bachelor’s degree and 20,000 for graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees.)

A USCIS spokesman said that based on preliminary numbers, this year the agency has “about half the petitions” it needs to meet the 2010 fiscal year cap of 65,000, but it is “just short of the 20,000 advanced degree cap.”

Looks like U.S. employers don’t have the jobs to offer domestic workers, much less those from other countries. It’s too soon to know how the economic stimulus money will affect IT hiring for the rest of the year, but if government IT projects begin soon, the USCIS could be seeing greater demand for additional IT talent from abroad.

So-called “temp-to-perm” hiring — i.e., hiring temps that could someday become permanent staffers.

At the end of 2008, 38% of companies said they plan on cutting IT staff in the near future, according to a survey by staffing services provider Veritude. That number rose sharply from the 4% who gave the same answer earlier in the year.

At the same time, 56% said they planned to hire temp-to-perm IT staff. That’s compared to 27% earlier in 2008.

The reason: At most companies, IT budgets have dropped, but workloads haven’t. That’s driven more companies to rely on contract and temporary workers, Veritude says. And they make good candidates for full-time hires once business picks up.

Do you hire temps in IT or other departments? Did you before the economy went downhill? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Microsoft recently made headlines after it laid off 1,400 workers. And then the news got even worse.

The software giant discovered that an “inadvertent administrative error” resulted in some former staffers being paid more severance than the company planned.

So what did the company do? It sent a letter to all those affected and asked them to pay the money back.

The costs of the error weren’t exactly insignificant — Microsoft’s HR chief Lisa Brummel estimated 25 former employees each received an average of $4,000 – $5,000 in extra cash.

But several critics jumped on the company for being insensitive and making a big PR mistake. And the company listened — last week, Brummel apologized and announced the former employees would now get to keep the oversize checks.

What do you think about this story? Should Microsoft be repaid the money? Or would it have been best to let it go and not draw any attention to the mistake?

Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.

An employee received what he thought was an unfair performance review. Angry with his boss, he resigned from his position.

Before he left, he deleted all of the computer files he’d been working on. The company spent an estimated $40,000-$50,000 on labor trying to recover all the data, and several projects were delayed.

The company told police, and the employee was arrested for breaking an Illinois law against tampering with computer files without the owner’s permission. He was brought to trial, but the charges were dropped after a key witness failed to appear.

Things didn’t end there, though. The employee sued the company for malicious prosecution, claiming the criminal charges had no merit.

The court tossed out his case. For a malicious prosecution claim to hold water, criminal charges have to be brought with no probable cause. In this case, it would be easy to conclude the man broke the law — and probably would’ve been convicted if the trial had gone smoothly.

Cite: Deng v. Sears, Roebuck and Co.