For all that pop culture has done to cultivate the slick, cool loner persona of a hacker, it bears little relation to reality. In many cases, data theft is extremely corporatized. Frankly, it can be boring.
Unfortunately, this makes it no less dangerous. These cybercriminals are quiet and meticulous in their work, invisibly pulling your data out over the course of weeks or months. The worst part: if you don’t know what to look for, you could completely miss the subtle warning signs.
Let’s Explore a Hypothetical Scenario…
Meet Gerry. Gerry has long been a fixture in the workplace, never excelling at his tasks, but never causing any real problems… at least, not until he was passed up for a promotion, losing it to Rebecca (a comparatively new employee, but one who was always seeking to learn more and contributed creative ideas). With Rebecca now in charge, Gerry is frustrated and has secretly been seeking other employment opportunities.
There’s been some interest in him as a candidate, and he gets a few pretty solid options. As this has been going on, though, his performance at work has slumped. Making things worse, Gerry’s done more than just cut corners in his last few weeks… as a way to really impress his new employer, Gerry has also been making duplicates of your client lists, project templates, and pricing strategies to bring with him.
He’s not just eating your lunch. He’s stealing the whole place setting.
Without a centralized way to keep an eye on your business’ data, this could all be happening right under your nose.
Fortunately, there are ways you can check for these long-term data leaks.
What Business Leaders Need to Watch Out For
There are—generally speaking—three steps that one of your employees would follow to steal your data.
- The culprit takes a few files from your storage each day, likely focusing on your higher-value clients.
- They’ll then upload these files to their personal cloud storage, where they are officially out of your control.
- The culprit will then cover their tracks, deleting any files they copied onto their machine, clearing their browser history, and emptying their computer’s recycling bin. When they finally do leave, there is no indication that their machine was misused.
There are other risks to factor in, too. Let’s say the culprit has an account on some free AI tool. If they feed your data into it—let’s say to organize it again—all that data is now also in that AI tool’s reference data for any user to potentially see. That’s officially a data breach in and of itself.
So, what can be done to prevent this kind of theft, without becoming Big Brother and monitoring your team’s every move?
How to Prevent Leaks Without Losing Trust
Honestly, a lot of top-level executives and other business leaders might be okay with nuclear-level employee monitoring… tracking every mouse movement and keystroke and peeking at screens via random screenshots. They wouldn’t mind being Big Brother within their organization.
However, it is important to consider how the rest of society felt in the classic Orwell novel 1984, where we get the phrase and concept of Big Brother from. They were miserable under Big Brother’s oppressive control until they were forcibly broken and brainwashed into loving their subjugator. The populace of Oceania lived through their dystopia of constant surveillance because they couldn’t leave. Your employees, however, most certainly can.
On a more practical note, just imagine the scope of data we’re talking about. This kind of surveillance would multiply your data processing and storage needs, not to mention the time required to review it all.
Instead, We Recommend a Gentler Touch
Instead of monitoring your team’s every move, you can simply set boundaries that prevent them from moving where they shouldn’t. Conditional role-based access makes it a lot easier to keep data private, whether you’re talking about cloud permissions or mobile device management.
These boundaries are crucial to protecting your intellectual property, and if executed properly, won’t alienate the team you count on. Instead, it should be perceived as it is intended: a means of securing your business.
We’re here to help. We can work with you to appropriately lock down your data privacy without restricting your team’s ability to do their work or sacrificing their privacy. Give us a call at (954) 575-3992 to learn more or to set up an appointment.
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