Managing the New Company Thief

Up until recently, sophisticated firewalls and password protection have been relatively sufficient to protect sensitive company information. Now, these measures are anything but sufficient. The proliferation of electronic devices such as iPods, camera cell phones, thumb drives, Blackberries, flash drives, and all other sorts of downloadable devices have made all companies at risk for insider theft right under their proverbial noses. With the use of these devices, downloading significant amounts of data is easy, virtually instantaneous, and often very difficult to detect. Indeed, numerous companies have had valuable proprietary information stolen covertly by their own employees. Those that haven't yet are undoubtedly at risk. The security risks associated with these new portable electronic devices apply to essentially all companies that, in the course of doing business, allow employees' access to electronically stored, confidential, and proprietary information.

Unfortunately, in the current environment, the legal system is not forgiving toward companies that take a more relaxed approach with respect to protecting their own sensitive information. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act, adopted by many states, requires that companies exercise reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy of confidential information before the information can be protected under trade secrets laws. A lack of such efforts taken by a company precludes its ability to seek protection of its sensitive information.