Continuing from our previous article: If you don’t have active monitoring across your network for at-risk events, you should know that a departing employee is the highest risk for data loss. Studies and our experience show that more than 70% of exiting employees take business data, if no proactive monitoring or blocking is in place.
Once they have given you notice of their resignation, or they become aware of your decision to terminate their employment, loyalty is at its lowest point. The taking of sensitive business information usually occurs within 2-3 weeks prior to the notice of resignation, or close to the time they believe their employment will be ended. We’ve also seen trade secrets and company confidential information copied, uploaded, or sent on the day the employee is actually being offboarded. While there are some unique exceptions, the critical time to consider is 3 weeks before, and up to the last few minutes they have access to your information…and the higher the soon-to-be-former employee’s position is within your company, the more you should consider the possibility of trade secret theft. When asked why senior-level employees steal data when they understand the downside to being caught, our response has been, “Because they know what it’s worth, and where to monetize it.”
Maybe they can achieve this, or perhaps it may not materialize, but the idea or dream of such misguided actions likely won’t stop them from taking your data. And once the trade secrets are outside of your protected environment, they are at risk.