Viking Yachts Protects Intellectual Property From a Departing Employee

As the network administrator for Viking Yachts, Vincent Pecoreno knows his network and his people like the back of his hand.

As the company grew he was responsible for supporting over 530 users and 1500 devices across multiple geographic locations, making visibility a challenge without the right tools in place.

To continue supporting the employees who make Viking Yachts’ vision of quality yachts possible, Vincent knew that he needed solutions for monitoring and controlling internet use and the flow of data in the company.

After some searching Vincent was delighted to have found the CurrentWare team. With CurrentWare he received more than quality software; he got the expertise and professionalism that the Viking Yachts team looks for when selecting their partners.

ATTEMPTED CORPORATE ESPIONAGE
Ex-Employee Tries to Steal Their Proprietary Data for a Competitor

When an employee in their company put in their 3-weeks notice, Vincent was tasked with auditing their USB activity with AccessPatrol.

To his dismay he found evidence of the soon-to-be-ex-employee transferring 400+ highly valuable proprietary design files to a portable storage device. Once confronted with the evidence, they confessed to their crimes.

“When the employee was questioned about the data transfer he admitted to it because he knew we had the absolute evidence to take him to trial.

I cannot thank all of you enough for this software, being able to audit removable drives is invaluable.“

Without the visibility provided by AccessPatrol the soon-to-be-ex employee would have gotten away with stealing Viking Yachts’ designs and giving a competitor a significant competitive advantage.

Why Do Employees Steal Data?

The data security risks of offboarding employees simply cannot be understated. It’s been reported that 70% of intellectual property theft occurs within the 90 days before an employee’s resignation announcement.

The Key Reasons Employees Steal Data

• Competitive Edge: Ex-employees may steal intellectual property to gain favor with a competing company; this is a form of corporate espionage.
• Financial Gain: The 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that 86% of breaches are financially motivated. Sensitive data is incredibly valuable to a variety of threat actors.
• Entitlement: 72% of business decision-makers in the 2018 Data Exposure Report by Code42 believe they are entitled to corporate data that they contributed to, such as source code.
• Revenge: Employees that are being involuntarily terminated, passed over for a promotion, or denied a raise are more likely to steal corporate data as a way of “getting back” at the company.

How Viking Yachts Uses CurrentWare Day-to-Day

Along with protecting their confidential data with AccessPatrol, Viking Yachts uses BrowseControl and BrowseReporter to manage employee internet and application usage.

Trust is paramount to Viking Yachts’ family-owned business, but they also need to verify that their computer usage policies are being followed.

Thanks to BrowseReporter’s user activity reports they can easily audit the internet and application usage of employees that are suspected of misusing company computers.

CurrentWare provides valuable insights into how well new employees are doing. Vincent keeps an eye on their internet, application, and USB device usage to ensure that they are using company equipment as expected.

If there are any issues Vincent can provide managers and human resources staff with the information they need to give further guidance to their new employees.