Data Leakages Detection

In February 2021, a representative of a company producing and selling fabric approached CleverControl. The company had been experiencing a drop in revenue over the past months. Besides, several key customers switched to competitors who had offered them more favourable conditions. The management suspected that their employees sold data about the clients and deal terms to the competitors. However, they could neither prove the fact nor reveal the moles with available tools.

We suggested the company should install CleverControl on the computers of employees who had access to the data about clients and deals. The company's IT specialist decided to install the software silently via Group Policy so as not to warn off the suspects.

Our experience shows that data thefts are most frequently conducted by copying the information to an external drive or emailing it. That is why we advised the management to pay close attention to social media and messenger monitoring, tracking external devices, screenshots and screen recordings. Additionally, the manager watched Live Viewing occasionally in hopes of catching the mole red-handed.

CleverControl helped the senior executives to detect several violations in the following month. Monitoring revealed two sales managers who leaked a customer base to the competitors. They sent it via personal email accounts outside the company's network, so it had been hard to detect these leakages without monitoring software such as CleverControl. Upon the competitor's request, the managers also shared the agreement details with a few big customers. Using the information, the competitor could target those customers and offer them more favourable terms. The strategy was successful - the company lost two key clients. The sales department had to do their best and elaborate a system of personal bonuses and discounts to win back those clients.

It goes without saying that the moles were fired, but the damage they had done required a lot of work to repair. Besides, monitoring with CleverControl revealed a few areas that needed improvement to gain better productivity. For instance, the workload distribution was uneven in the department. Some employees took more responsibilities than others which often led to late hours and delays. Seeing the benefits of using CleverControl, the senior executives made a decision to expand the systems to other departments.

• Social media and IM monitoring

  Monitoring emails revealed that two sales employees sold data to competitors.
• Schermopname

  Screen recordings provided additional proof of commercial data leakages.
• Tracking external devices

  Monitoring portable storage devices in combination with screen recordings can also help to reveal data leakages.