CYFOR Blog

Protecting your business data and intellectual property is of paramount importance.

Businesses extend resources to protect critical documentation and records from external parties but often overlook the potential for business data to be taken by individuals internal to them.

Business Risk

One potential area in which business data could be placed at risk is when an employee is terminated from, or otherwise leaves, the company. By way of an example, CYFOR has dealt with cases where a current employee of a firm has decided to migrate to a competitor and has stolen sensitive company information, including customer databases and financial data. Such intellectual property theft can often be damaging to a firm, as sensitive data being provided to a competitor or used to form a new start-up business can result in a loss of customers.

Preventative Measures

Protecting your business data should be high on the agenda. There are various preventative methods which can be implemented to prevent data theft from occurring, as well as methods to identify employee activity following a suspected breach. Restrictions on office computer systems, such as limiting employee access to personal email or denying users the ability to attach external USB devices, can assist in reducing an employee’s ability to take sensitive data off-site.

In the instance that preventative measures are not implemented, or fail to contain a data breach, it may be necessary to investigate the suspect employee’s computer systems to determine how the breach occurred, the extent of the breach and the nature of the data compromised. Should the evidence collected from an investigation be required in a court of law, it is imperative that the forensic integrity of such data is maintained.

CYFOR can create a forensic image of the computer, or computers, believed to have been responsible for the data breach, maintaining the integrity of crucial evidential information. Such diligence will ensure that any evidence reported upon will be admissible in a court of law.

CYFOR are specialists in protecting your business data. We can carry out an investigation into a suspect employee’s computer to determine critical information, such as:

• Online cloud storage usage, such as Dropbox or Google Drive activity;
• Personal email account usage;
• Web browsing history, including Google searches;
• Social media messages, such as Facebook and Skype contacts;
• USB device history, including the devices used on the computer and files copied to them;
• Recovery of deleted data.

All the above information and more can be recovered and reported on, which can be crucial in demonstrating that an employee conspired to steal corporate data. Following a data breach, CYFOR can advise on strategies which can be deployed to ensure that any further potential breaches are identified and prevented before they have a negative impact on your business.