Investigating Leakages of Intellectual Property

A private school with an advanced study of exact sciences contacted CleverControl with a delicate request. The school followed the latest trends and implemented the latest innovations in teaching. The unique program in Mathematics was the subject of their special pride. The course included a complete set of theoretical materials, exercises, games and tests for each grade based on the innovative approach. It was a result of the two teachers' long work, which would soon become textbooks for schools with advanced studies of Maths. Until then, other staff were not allowed to share the materials outside the school or use them in private tutoring.

However, when the headmaster talked to her colleagues from other schools, she learned that some were already using materials developed in her school. Those teachers refused to tell where they had got them, but one thing was clear: the unique program had leaked. The headmaster needed to identify the source of the leak and prevent further unauthorized sharing.

The teachers downloaded the educational materials from the school's secure server to their classroom computers. The headmaster assumed that the source of the leak either copied the data to an external storage device or sent it out by email. After proper authorization and employee notice, the school's IT specialist installed CleverControl on authorized school computers to review activity related to these channels.

The headmaster and the IT specialist checked reports from each computer daily but did not find any suspicious activity. Most probably, the mole had copied all the materials before the program was installed. To determine whether the leak was ongoing, the headmaster asked the authors to add some new educational materials to the school server and continued the authorized monitoring with CleverControl. That brought results: logs from one of the new substitute teacher's computer showed that an external storage device was plugged in. To be sure, the headmaster also checked screen recordings for that period of time, which confirmed the fact of copying the materials. A further internal investigation revealed that the new substitute teacher had shared the educational materials with a friend from another school. The friend then shared them with her colleagues. Besides, the substitute teacher did private tutoring using the stolen materials.

The school took appropriate internal action according to its policies.

• External storage activity

  Monitoring external storage devices helped to reveal educational materials leakages.
• Skärminspelning

  Recordings of the teacher's screen proved the fact of unauthorized copying.
• Online monitoring

  Secure remote monitoring via the online dashboard supported the internal investigation after proper authorization and employee notice.