Negligence, improper use, but also untrained handling, can lead to the destruction of
equipment or data media that can seriously disrupt the operation of the IT system.
Furthermore, there is the risk that important information is lost due to the destruction, which
may not be recovered at all or may only be recovered with great effort.
Examples:
• An employee in one company used his knowledge of the fact that an important server
was sensitive to excessive operating temperatures and blocked the ventilation slots of
the power supply fan by hiding an object behind the server. Two days later, the hard
disk in the server malfunctioned due to overheating, and the server was down for
several days.
• An employee became so angry after his system crashed repeatedly that he let his anger
out on his workstation computer. He kicked the computer so hard that the hard disk
was damaged to the point of uselessness. The data stored on this hard disk could only
be partially reconstructed by restoring a backup from the day before.
• A spilled cup of coffee or a puddle of water after watering plants can penetrate into an
IT system and cause short circuits.