Employees stole data

Evergreen · May 2003

I have discovered that several former employees hacked a password and copied off and distributed employee files to all my staff...payroll, offer letters, customer contact data, etc. Has anybody had this type of experience. If so, what did you do.

LFernandes · May 2003

Call your attorney...and good luck!

LFernandes

Balloonman · May 2003

I disagree with LFernandes, I would call the police and see what if any criminal statutes might apply. Do that first, call the lawyer after you see what the police can do.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

LFernandes · May 2003

The reason I would call my attorney first is to find out what my liability was and where I stood legally. When unsure - it's always good to get advice first.

Don D · May 2003

I tend to agree with LFernandes. Local police departments are notorious for bungling things and not particularly astute at determining what sections of what laws have been violated unless the infraction relates to moving traffic violations. Your lawyer will see a much bigger picture, such as whether or not to secure the equipment and confiscate other computers and whether to suspend pending investigation and hopefully he already knows your company and its policies and has a copy of your procedures manuals. My guess is that if you call the police, the first two people will refer you to others and the first real answer you get will be, "You know, I don't really know what you should do about this, but I'll leave a note on an investigator's desk and someone will get back with you."

Whatever · May 2003

Change the access codes.

Evergreen · May 2003

Thanks for the swift responses!

I have contacted the FBI and my Atty, and we are in the process of building the case. I was wondering if anybody else has experienced this and what the result(s) were?

Evergreen · May 2003

And, Oh yes...I have change the passwords. They obtained those via a protocol analyzer while they were still employed.

pecohr · May 2003

I'm curious, what do you think was the reason for the thefts? Do you have new union related activities going on, or do you think this was an opportunitist looking for identity theft information or just customer contact information.

I realize you may not have or know the answers to the above so will not be offended if no answer is given. I ask because I have concerns about the identity theft issue in the workplace and want to keep abreast of what others are doing to combat this issue.

Thanks,
Stuart

LFernandes · May 2003

Please let us know the outcome. I too, would be interested in knowing why they did it.

LFernandes

blw · May 2003

I would suggest one other thing. Our building was broken into on March 31st, or I should say 7 offices were broken into. We believe it was an employee, but have no evidence. Police came, etc. My biggest concern, is that they went through my assistant's desk and found the keys to the filing cabinets. All personnel file cabinets were unlocked. We haven't found anything missing. My concern was access to SS numbers. So I issued a memo to alert staff, distributed phone numbers to the three credit bureau's, with steps to place a fraud alert on their account if they wanted to and the phone number to the local SS office. So, if anything with SS numbers was accessed, you might want to make staff aware of the risks.

Employees stole data

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