Sacked workers steal company data

CEO magazine reports a survey by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Symantec that says 59 percent of sacked workers admitted stealing company data. On top of that, two-thirds (67 percent) used their ex-company’s confidential information to help secure a new job.

The CIO story has a lot of information about how the sacked workers carry out their data theft — which can involve burning CDs, using memory sticks and sending out emails.

It also talks about their job descriptions and industry sectors. To a reader it appears that all the respondents may be in the USA, although this isn’t made clear anywhere. It would be interesting to know if this is an American phenomenon or if there are differences when this happens in other countries.

What data are people stealing?

Nor is there much hard information about the nature of the stolen information. Are we talking customer databases, financial details, plans for new products and other serious threats to a company's existence or are sacked people merely stealing minor things? Perhaps they steal information they feel they have a moral claim to?

This story reminds me of something I learnt as a young journalist in my first job in the UK. If you purchased your own address book and used that to store your contact details, that would be your property. It wouldn’t be regarded as theft if you took the address book home when you left your job. On the other hand, if you put your contacts in a company-owned book or card index, it would have to stay behind.

A journalists’ contact book is one of his or her most valuable possessions. Even now in a digital age, many journalists maintain paper contact books for this reason.

CIO > More than half of fired workers steal data on way out.