Have Your Employees Sold Your Data?

The recent story of an employee selling mobile phone records to the competition highlights, once again, that we live in changing times. All data has a value to someone, and today some people aren’t afraid of the consequences of doing something bad with it – these are the malicious insiders. They have rightful access to the data as part of their job, but they don’t do the right things with it.

While many will reel in (fake) horror at the prospect of an employee doing something bad with the data that they have  been entrusted with, the reality is that the vast majority don’t know what happens to their data. Technology exists to prevent data loss, but it can also be used to watch for anomalous usage. For example, if someone usually looks up one customer record at a time but then looks up a thousand, it can be flagged up for investigation. There are probably several valid reasons that this occurred, perhaps they had been asked to run a new report – but perhaps not. With the ICO gaining it’s teeth, it is time to take a proactive approach to protecting data – inside as well as outside the corporation.

Guy Bunker

November 23, 2009 | Filed Under Insider, data-loss, security 

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