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Laid-Off Workers Taking Data With Them

by Tim Stevens on February 25, 2009 at 03:02 PM

Laid Off Workers Taking Data With Them

We've all heard the news about layoffs -- the daily grind of corporate downsizing that has started to sound like the background noise of a failing economy. The majority of corporations are giving their laid-off people some sort of severance package to help tide them over, at least for a few weeks, but a new survey is showing that most workers are doing something to take care of themselves: stealing confidential data from their (now) former employers.

According to the survey from Symantec, a firm that produces security software in a variety of flavors, 60-percent of laid-off workers take some sort of confidential data with them. That could include customer contact lists, software design documents, or any manner of proprietary information. Most workers feel that, since they helped to create this data, they therefore own a piece of it. And while the courts likely wouldn't agree, right now, employers aren't doing much to stop them; 82-percent of companies are not investigating what documents former employees might be taking with them, and nearly a quarter of laid-off employees still have network access when their paychecks stop. That, system administrators, is asking for trouble! [From: CNET News]

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Tags: data security, DataSecurity, lay off, LayOff, layoffs, security

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