According to an FBI press release, ex-Valspar employee David Yen Lee was arrested on March 28, charged with stealing trade secrets from his former employer. Lee had been an employee of Valspar since May of 2006, in charge of new paint coloring and manufacturing technologies.
According to the complaint, Lee abruptly resigned from his position with Valspar on March 16, a mere two weeks after his return from a business trip to China.
After finding irregularities on Lee’s laptop, an investigation began which revealed Lee had copied nearly 44 gigabytes of proprietary data from Valspar servers using a USB drive to remove the data, according to some reports.
It was also learned that Lee had accepted a position in Osaka, Japan with Valspar rival Nippon Paint Co., and was due to leave the country for Shanghai, China on March 27.
How Safe is Your Data?
A recent study by the Ponemon Institute found that nearly 60 percent of employees who resign or are released steal proprietary data from their employers. The types of data vary, but include email lists (65%), non-financial business information (45%), customer contacts (39%), employee records (35%) and financial information (16%).
An organization’s information assets should be carefully monitored for unauthorized access attempts. In addition, reporting on file access by authorized users can reveal suspicious patterns of activity that stop a theft in its tracks. Auditing USB storage activity may also be useful in tracking attempts to remove data from the network. Real-time alerts generated for unauthorized activity allow the appropriate personnel to take immediate action when an event occurs.
To find out more about Blue Lance’s security solutions for defending against insider threat, call 800-856-2583 or visit bluelance.com.
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