When Employees Put Data At Risk: Medical IT Client Horror Tales That Will Convince You To Encrypt (Part 2)

By Delano Collins, Chief Information Officer, EDTS

Read Part 1

Previously, we chilled you with a haunting tale of a medical practice that would not listen to warnings to encrypt, even after an ex-contractor stole a computer holding unprotected private medical information. It caused our IT and security services company to end that relationship rather than risk being arty to a damaging HIPAA violation.

Since any good horror movie needs a sequel (well, almost any), the fright continues.

Tale #2: A Salesperson, Scorned

Sometimes, even good clients unknowingly associate with bad people — and individuals in a desperate spot will find they’re capable of crimes you never would’ve guessed they’d commit. Luckily there’s IT security software that’s decidedly un-sentimental when it comes to being ready for anything a person might try.

Our client in this case is a nationwide reseller of medical appliances. Their sales team spans the United States, and sales team members each receive phones, tablets, laptops — all the devices they could ever need to do their jobs. For the business, the most important data on these devices is their list of clients, a lengthy and highly confidential trade secret. They audit who touches the client list and who copies it — and individual sales people only receive a subset of the massive list. A former employee once managed to steal some of this client data and started a competing business, and the client didn’t want anything like that happening again.

Please log in or register below to read the full article.