Data Theft By Employees: Risks And Precautions

Introduction:

The Ponemon Institute's 2017 Cost of Data Breach Report has shown that Indian firms are at a high risk of data breach, especially the financial services and the technology companies.¹ Moreover, the report highlights the cases of data theft not only by the professional hackers or malwares but by the companies' "trusted" employees. Though most companies take stringent measures to secure their systems and network against cyber-attacks, they remain casual about protecting important data from their own employees. For example, in a recent case, the Canada Life insurance group alleged a former senior executive for transferring "significant and highly confidential information" to another company.² Further, in another incident, SunTrust Banks Inc. reported data theft by an employee who is alleged to have stolen important information of about 1.5 million customers and provided it to a "criminal third party".³ Hence, keeping in mind the consequences of such kind