Financial Cos Face Highest Risk Of Critical Data Being Passed On To Competitors - Disgruntled staff misuse data to hit out at employers

Sameer Agarwal, 27-year-old trader with a top multinational bank is blogging on his bank’s research data used for its trades. But he could soon be facing a law suit for disseminating confidential information. Several organisations are now tackling loss of trade secrets and other critical company information from disgruntled employees, says security firm McAfee. 

“As more and more people are being asked to leave in a downturn, the risk of intellectual property loss has never been greater. This trend is seen the most in the banking and finical services sector followed bymanufacturing,” said McAfee APAC director Michael Sentonas. Corporates are obviously concerned over the misuse of such data loss, especially by competition. 

While most employees use internet platforms like blogs, twitter, facebook and other web 2.0 applications to share information, organisations are now being advised to monitor the workstations of employees. “They should regulate the data that is uploaded by each employee on portals outside of their work capacity. Companies should also encrypt their confidential data to prevent any policy violations,” said Mr Sentonas. If an employee is caught of any wrongful act, he can face legal action initiated by his employer. 
    

However, there are no stringent Indian laws to prevent such data theft. “Trade secrets are protected by contract and are not statutory in India. Any bank data like credit card details, trade secrets are all confidential information and the company can only have a contractual remedy against it,” said Vinay Aravind, an IP lawyer with Chennai-based law firm Poovayya & Co. The research used by banks to do trades is the property of the bank and not individuals who have worked on the project. “This is a case of trade violation” Mr Aravind said. 
    

It would also help if the employees understand what information they can use outside of the organisation. “The weakest link in any technology solution is people and they are harder to track down. Organisations must work with their employees to differentiate between public and private information,” said Gartner research director Andrew Walls. 
    

In the absence of an iron clad contract, copyright infringement is another legal action the employee could be faced with. “If a substantial portion of a document is reproduced verbatim, it is a copyright violation. But if an employee discusses only the concept in public, it is not a breach as copyright protects the expression and not the idea,” said Mr Aravind. 

Source: The Times of India, 07/02/09