It is vital for companies to keep their crown jewels - source code, product designs, customer pricing information - from ending up in the wrong hands. Imagine the financial, reputational and operational risk that could come from material data being leaked before an IPO, acquisition or earnings call. Even worse, imagine your organization’s intellectual property (IP) ending up in the hands of a competitor.
Part of the problem of data security is that data has never been more portable. Sales lists, product specs, pricing information, payroll data and even contact lists are just a few examples of small but critically valuable files that are simple to take. Employees can easily store hundreds of gigabytes on their mobile devices, send company documents to their personal Gmail, or quickly transfer data to personal cloud storage services like Dropbox.
And when these employees leave jobs, they take data with them. According to data from Code42, more than two-thirds of workers who said they have taken data are repeat offenders and 32% of employees who take data to their new job say they were encouraged by their new employers to share that data.
The Big Quit Era
Departing employees will always be part of the ordinary course of business, but their threat to IP has grown astronomically during the Great Resignation. The first six months of 2021 saw unprecedented turnover in the US labor market after a full year of the COVID-19 pandemic. With an abundance of low-cost capital, a shortage of skilled workers and an opening up of remote talent pools, there is a real merry-go-round happening. Whether workers want to work full-time remotely, are looking for a great new title, can’t say no to 20-30% more compensation, or are simply no longer engaged after 18 months of Zoom meetings, they are changing jobs like never before.
Business leaders are naturally worried about departing employees, about their ability to bring on new talent, about the rise in the cost of labor. But many fail to think about the IP that’s departing with those employees.
Insider Risk
Insider risk is defined as “any user-driven data exposure event that jeopardizes the financial, reputational or operational well-being of a company and its employees, customers and partners.” Thousands of user-driven data exposure and exfiltration events occur daily, stemming from accidental user error and employee negligence, to malicious users actually intending to do harm.
An analysis of recent data from Code42 shows a direct correlation between resignations, departing employees, and data exposure events. Data from over 700,000 endpoints running the Code42 Incydr solution between January 1 and June 30 uncovered four major data movement and exposure trends:
- Data Exposure and User Exodus: There were large spikes in data exposure that directly correspond to when people leave jobs. There was a 40% increase in data exposure events between H2 2020 and H1 2021, and an even more massive increase quarter-over-quarter. The 3-month period between April and June saw a 61% increase over the previous quarter.
- Source Code Loss is Climbing: During Q2 2021, there was an 83% increase when compared to the previous two quarters.
- Increase of Removable Media Data Leaks: Employees synchronizing to cloud storage have historically been the top cause of data exposure, but during the Great Resignation, removable media (think USB drives) eclipsed cloud syncs, representing 42% and 37% of all data exposure events, respectively.
- Google Chrome Most Used Web Browser: When looking at data leaks caused specifically by applications, 52% were caused via Google Chrome. This does not indicate that it’s particularly problematic, but simply its dominant market share.
Recent data shows that people are still actively looking for new jobs and millions more are willing to change in the near future. It’s clear that, based on trends, many of these employees will likely take data with them to their next company. But insider risk is a solvable problem. You can’t unleak a data leak any more than you can put toothpaste back in the tube. But with the right processes and technology, you can see data as it leaves the organization – and address the leak before the impact is too great.
To learn 5 simple steps to get started with an Insider Risk Management program, visit https://www.code42.com/insider-risk-management/.
