Comment by uean
5 hours ago
Working on the systems/security/infrastructure side, we can already do this. Endpoint management systems already report wifi-ssid, internal-IP, whether you are using a vpn to try and hide info. SASE/ZTNA solutions provide location data, username, device used, connection details. Conditional access policies in the tenant already do checks against all of this anyway.
The roadmap just makes the whole thing user-facing so there's a status in Teams of where you currently are. But IT knew all along. And if IT didn't have tools deployed to get this info already count yourself lucky to work at an immature org security-wise.
Yeah, it's mostly just a weird feature in terms of ick-factor vs. utility.
I will say that "IT knows where I am" and "my manager / manager's manager / whatever sees where I am on Teams" would represent two very different personal annoyance levels at most companies I've worked at; at most places I've worked getting someone's location through IT required them to be doing something questionable or illegal (ie - working from an unapproved country) or breaking some obnoxious return-to-office policy, not just "hey is Bob out to lunch again or is he over in Building 6 so I can drive-by him with some questions real quick"
People should look up what features "carbon black" has, it's extremely frequently deployed (cb.exe in task manager) and can, (according to their own marketing) provide managers with live feeds of your desktop... So yeah...
mmhmm. Yea if someone really had the desire they could figure out my online presence and possibly even get a rough idea of what I'm actually doing with my time. Always something you could figure out from an IT network, its just about putting the history together.
But I'll agree that Teams is packaging this information into something more digest-able for middle managers, and that's the rub. There are always manager types who have the epiphany that not everyone is working 100% of the time and it bothers them enough to call it out to subordinates, or if they don't like someone enough they might do a deep dive with IT. Teams already has this indicator to show if you're online, on mobile, in a meeting, AFK, or offline entirely. Its not that the information wasn't there, its just much more front-and-center for managers to be annoying about it.
Working on the systems/security/infrastructure side, we can already do this
IT having the information for security is one thing.
In the hands of power-hungry lower middle managers, it becomes a weapon.
I think that's the difference.
First security job I had, the CISO had already declared that enforcing "no Youtube, porn, whatever" at work was a managerial problem and not a security problem [0]. And when management needed data from computers about an employee, they had to go through security -- they couldn't just fish around on their own. HR was involved, there was a paper trail, and requests were scope limited.
There are companies that do incredibly invasive employee monitoring, but those dystopias don't use EDR or whatever. They use some other vendor's spyware to replace management with creeping.
For some reason I'm reminded of the chains or cables used to keep operator hands (Posson's pull-backs) from being crushed in a press brake.
[0] The malware, etc that can come from those sites was a security problem -- but checking if creepy Bob was looking at boobs on company equipment or even just wasting time had nothing to do with infosec.
In my experience the most common use of this data is to build case for firing someone for cause when upper management wants them out. It's rarely used for actual security purposes.