Corporate data theft doubles in two years

Employees are stealing confidential information at twice the rate in 2006 as they seek to bring more to the table in a tougher jobs market. In 70% of more than 100 cases of corporate date theft analysed by Mishcon de Reya and KPMG, former employees now working for a competitor were responsible. The pattern was consistent across all sectors. In 75% of cases, the data stolen related to customers, whether lists, details about client relationships or statistics like trading volumes, pricing information and profits. The most sensitive financial information, such as management accounts, business plans, projections and forecasts was only taken in 14% of cases. Perpetrators tended to justify their thefts by claiming that the data was already held by the competitor (60%) or in the public domain (30%). In the vast majority of cases (93%), the employee had already left the victim company before they were detected. Restrictive covenants were largely ineffective in protecting data but they proved their worth in securing restraining orders against parties after the event.