The High Court has seen a significant increase in data theft cases being heard, according to UK law firm EMW. These cases tend to relate to information stolen from businesses by employees, and the availability of cloud storage is being blamed, together with the increasing number of people working remotely. Between 2011 and 2012, there was a huge 58% increase in the number of cases being heard relating to confidential data theft, increasing from 106 to 167 cases respectively.
It has been suggested that there was a 250% increase when compared to 2010 (45 cases), but this was somewhat of an anomaly, having decreased from 95 cases in 2009. In recent years however, there has be a definite increase, which is bad news for businesses in a variety of ways. Most cases heard by the High Court were civil, taken out by companies against former employees who had stolen company data.
The average cost of such cases is lb30,000, according to reports, not including the value of the stolen data. This is difficult to put a price on, due to the wide ranging implications of data being taken, both financial and other, business wide consequences. It is also virtually impossible to retrieve such data once it has been taken.
A major issue has been cited as cloud storage services, for example Dropbox. Such services make it easy for huge amounts of data to be stored or transferred very rapidly, and without any technical expertise. Another factor is the ever increasing number of people working out of the office, or remotely, meaning employees are often more freely able to access and steal data.
Our data thieving hero in the movies would be impatiently waiting for the download of information to his hard disk to complete, whilst his boss' footsteps got louder and louder as he was on the verge of being caught. It's much easier in reality however, with the perpetrator able to download and share data easily from the comfort of their own home, whilst sitting comfortably watching TV in their chair.
Data leak protection (DLP) systems should ideally be used to monitor such occurrences, as well as more stringent restrictions on the people able to access sensitive data, remotely or otherwise. DLP is able to monitor file types, specific files, or even fragments of data crossing pre-defined boundaries, and can even limit the amount of data transferred from point to point over a specified period of time. Adding controls to devices, such as preventing use of USB drives, CD burners, as well as web filtering blocking access to cloud services, can help to prevent the removal of data from company computers by disgruntled employees.
Whether these increased figures are due to a failure to implement such measures, or indeed an increase in their effectiveness, thereby catching more people in the process, is unclear. Theft of data, however, remains a significant issue for businesses, which needs addressing.
Company data needs careful protection and monitoring; keeping employees happy is one way to help. However, data theft penalties are seemingly not as effective as they could be at deterring such activities amongst employees.
It has been suggested that there was a 250% increase when compared to 2010 (45 cases), but this was somewhat of an anomaly, having decreased from 95 cases in 2009. In recent years however, there has be a definite increase, which is bad news for businesses in a variety of ways. Most cases heard by the High Court were civil, taken out by companies against former employees who had stolen company data.
The average cost of such cases is lb30,000, according to reports, not including the value of the stolen data. This is difficult to put a price on, due to the wide ranging implications of data being taken, both financial and other, business wide consequences. It is also virtually impossible to retrieve such data once it has been taken.
A major issue has been cited as cloud storage services, for example Dropbox. Such services make it easy for huge amounts of data to be stored or transferred very rapidly, and without any technical expertise. Another factor is the ever increasing number of people working out of the office, or remotely, meaning employees are often more freely able to access and steal data.
Our data thieving hero in the movies would be impatiently waiting for the download of information to his hard disk to complete, whilst his boss' footsteps got louder and louder as he was on the verge of being caught. It's much easier in reality however, with the perpetrator able to download and share data easily from the comfort of their own home, whilst sitting comfortably watching TV in their chair.
Data leak protection (DLP) systems should ideally be used to monitor such occurrences, as well as more stringent restrictions on the people able to access sensitive data, remotely or otherwise. DLP is able to monitor file types, specific files, or even fragments of data crossing pre-defined boundaries, and can even limit the amount of data transferred from point to point over a specified period of time. Adding controls to devices, such as preventing use of USB drives, CD burners, as well as web filtering blocking access to cloud services, can help to prevent the removal of data from company computers by disgruntled employees.
Whether these increased figures are due to a failure to implement such measures, or indeed an increase in their effectiveness, thereby catching more people in the process, is unclear. Theft of data, however, remains a significant issue for businesses, which needs addressing.
Company data needs careful protection and monitoring; keeping employees happy is one way to help. However, data theft penalties are seemingly not as effective as they could be at deterring such activities amongst employees.
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