If you use email or computers in your company (and who doesn’t?), chances are your employees are stealing from you. It may not be intentional, and it may not be in the way you are thinking. If an employee has ever emailed a work document to a personal account and did not delete it when they were done working on them, that is data theft. If an employee has ever transferred files to a thumb drive or one of their own devices without your permission, that is data theft.
You may not equate data theft with, say, the theft of office supplies or equipment. However, the reality of the situation is that data theft could be much more damaging to your business. If an employee were to share your information with a competitor, it could put your business at risk. Likewise, if an employee brings information from a past job to your company, you could be in violation of intellectual property laws.
There may not be a bulletproof way to stop data theft–Wikileaks is proof of that. However, there are some things you can do to help stem the flow of sensitive information from your business while reducing your liability. The most effective way is education. Make sure your employees are properly trained as to what sensitive information is and how to approach it. Many employees are just not aware of the importance of data security.
Another way is to provide your employees with the devices they need to do their job. It may be a new expense that your business is not used to, but it may be worth the cost if your employees are putting work data on personal devices that you can not control. With company-provided devices, your data never leaves company property, and when an employee quits, the device (and its data) remain in your control.
If you don’t have an IT team that can closely monitor new security trends and how they could affect your business, OAC Technology, a Minneapolis-based IT company, can help you lock down and maintain your Network Security. We can scan your network and make personalized recommendations for your business based on what we find. Contact us today to set up a free Network Security Audit.
