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Imagine the following scenario; Ten years ago
you decided to quit your job and start your own company. For ten years
you worked hard, made sacrifices, and it paid off in the end. One of
your first employees, a loyal, hard working employee has been by your side
the whole way.
Things were going great. Until about eight months ago.
All of a sudden, clients whom you had worked for
for years were not returning your
calls or e-mails. Then, sales from your online products site started dropping dramatically.
One day, out of the blue, that long time devoted employee did not show
up for work nor would they return any calls.
What you did not know was that employee who you
trusted with your life had spent the last eight months intercepting /
reading all your e-mails, installing monitoring software on your computers
to watch everything you do, contacting clients without your permission with
the explicit purpose of feeding them false information. The employee was downloading all
proprietary code for you online products store, setting up a duplicate site
on another server, and taking orders for those products.
In another recent case, an employee of an
institute of higher learning was threatening to blackmail the executive
staff. They had been notified that any action taken against the
individual would result in loss of large amounts of critical data and
negative publicity. We were hired to determine the validity of the
threat and to collect evidence for possible legal action. What we
found was quite disturbing. The suspect employee had installed
logic-bombs throughout the organizations network. These logic-bombs required
specific action be taken every 48 hours by the suspect employee. If
the employee did not perform a specific task within the allotted time, for
instance, if he / she had been terminated, the logic-bomb would execute.
There was much more to this story and none of it was positive.
You have just been the victim of corporate
fraud
But how could this happen to you, and by
someone who you trust? It happens more frequently then you know. If you can
gather enough evidence and convince the District Attorney to take action you
might only have to spend $20,000 to $50,000 to sue this person. On the
other hand, if you can't get the District Attorney involved, it may cost
you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you won't know what the outcome is
until it's all over!
A Few Things You Can Do
These are not fictional stories and everyone is
equally at risk for such an event. Make sure you have strict controls
and guidelines to keep your business safe. Any proprietary
information, whether it be code, sales information, client lists, or
financials should be well guarded. Obviously this information must be
shared with others in your organization, but it can be done so with audit
trails. As a business owner you should know who has access to what, when, and how.
The objective of this article is not to make
people paranoid, its purpose is to promote awareness. Most people /
employees are law abiding and productive, but don't make the mistake of
letting your guard down.
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