You ex-employees are probably stealing your company’s data on their way out the door. In a study by Symantec Corp. and Ponemon Institute, they found that 59 percent of ex-employees admit to stealing confidential company information: More Than Half of Ex-Employees Admit to Stealing Company Data According to New Study.
That employees are taking data is not surprising. That the percentage is this large may be a surprise to some of you. (It also not a surprise that Symantec also has a product to help limit this kind of data loss.) But in these economic times with many company’s downsizing, it is important to think about possible data loss.
Additional Survey Findings:
- 53 percent of respondents downloaded information onto a CD or DVD.
- 42 percent downloaded information onto a USB drive.
- 38 percent sent attachments to a personal e-mail account.
- 82 percent of respondents said their employers did not perform an audit or review of paper or electronic documents before the respondent left his/her job.
- 24 percent of respondents had access to their employer’s computer system or network after their departure from the company.
The Ponemon Institute conducted the web-based survey in January 2009, polling nearly 1,000 adult participants located in the United States who left an employer within the past 12 months.
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