Intellectual Property Theft
Investigating the Unauthorised Access, Use and Transfer of Intellectual Property.
Intellectual Property Theft.
Intellectual property can represent critical business value, from proprietary technology and product designs to trade secrets, research, source code and confidential commercial information.
When intellectual property is suspected to have been accessed, copied or transferred without authorisation, organisations may need to establish what happened, what information was involved and the potential scope of the matter.
Key Incident Indicators
Unauthorised access to proprietary designs, source code or technical documentation
Bulk downloads or copying of intellectual property repositories
Unusual access to research, product development or engineering files
Transfers of proprietary information to external accounts or devices
Suspicious file access or activity preceding employee resignation or departure
Unexplained changes to source code, design files or technical records
Potential disclosure of trade secrets to competitors or unauthorised parties
Unusual access to restricted intellectual property repositories
Key Challenges & Stellar Forensic Interventions
Identifying Unauthorised Access to Intellectual Property
Employees, contractors, third parties or compromised accounts may have access to sensitive intellectual property as part of legitimate business activities. Determining whether that access was subsequently misused requires examination of relevant user, file and system activity.
Investigating Suspected Theft by Employees or Departing Personnel
Intellectual property concerns may arise when an employee leaves the organisation, joins a competitor or is suspected of retaining or transferring proprietary information.
Understanding How Intellectual Property Was Transferred
Proprietary information may potentially leave an organisation through email, cloud storage, removable media, messaging platforms, personal accounts or other channels.
Establishing What Information Was Involved
An allegation of intellectual property theft may involve a large volume of files, systems and information. Organisations may need to determine which information was accessed and whether particular files or repositories were involved.
Assessing the Potential Scope of the Matter
Understanding the potential impact may require more than identifying a single file or user. Relevant activity may need to be examined across multiple devices, accounts, systems and time periods.