IP Thieves An Insider Job

IP Thieves An Insider Job

The average IP thief is a male employee around 37 years old who serves in a technical position, such as an engineer, scientist, technical manager or programmer.

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Most IP thieves signed an IP agreement.

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Close to 65 percent of IP thieves were already out the door, having accepted positions with competitors or starting their own company when they did the deed.

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More than half of those who steal IP do it within a month of leaving the company.

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Around a fifth of thieves were recruited by someone who wanted the data in question and a quarter of them gave the stolen goods to a foreign company or government.

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75 percent of insiders stole material they were authorized to access.

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Just over half of insider thefts analyzed were committed for trade secrets.

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In just under a third of cases, insiders took business information such as billing information, price lists or other administrative data.

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Approximately a fifth of insiders stole source code and 14 percent stole proprietary software.

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Around 12 percent of thives took customer information and 6 percent took business plans.

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The profilers said that most IP thieves fit into two categories&#151The Entitled Disgruntled Thief and the Machiavellian Leader .

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The Entitled Disgruntled Thief: about 60 percent of these thieves stole information they’d helped to develop.

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The Entitled Disgruntled Thief: about a third of them were disgruntled due to professional stressors such as lay-off worries or a rejection for promotions, raises or relocation.

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The Entitled Disgruntled Thief: "Often they decided to look for a new job and use the information to increase their attractiveness to their new employer," Shaw and Stock wrote. "Or after finding the new job they decided to take the information with them, either just to have it or to actually use it to further their position."

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Machiavellian Leader: 86 percent of these thieves took data directly linked to a business area they managed.

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Machiavellian Leader: "Unlike the Entitled Disgruntled Thief, who takes the IP quickly before leaving, the Machiavellian Leader does more planning," Shaw and Stock wrote. "For example, they may create a new business ahead of time, recruit colleagues to help them steal the information and join them at the new venture or coordinate their plans with an outside company or group."

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Among both types, the majority of thieves used email, a remote network access channel or network file transfer to remove their stolen data.

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But the majority of all these IP thieves were not caught by IT, but by non-technical staffers.