Software and Data Theft | Customer Poaching: Perpetrator Identification

Missing Laptop Containing Sensitive Data

Recently, the detectives of Aaden Corporate Detective Agency Stuttgart investigated a daring case of economic crime and unauthorized customer poaching. A laptop containing company-internal and protected software had “gone missing” from the client company. Specifically, the absence of this laptop had been noticed by the workforce, after which an employee who was due to leave the company a few days later reported the theft of the device to management. It was well known that this employee intended to register a business of his own on the first day of the month following the end of his employment contract, a business that would be in direct competition with the client of Aaden Detective Agency Stuttgart. Due to this situation, the employee in question was under urgent suspicion.

The Clients’ Source of Existence Under Threat

For a competing company, the data and programs on the stolen laptop would be enormously valuable, because through specially developed software the company, as the copyright holder, held a market share of 15–20% in its sector, which only it could serve. The matter involved machines and control elements that could only be operated and maintained with this licensed software. If the program were to fall into the hands of another company, a price war would inevitably have broken out, with fatal consequences for the clients of Aaden Detectives Stuttgart.

Accordingly, our private detectives from Swabia were to monitor the highly suspicious employee around the clock to ensure that he would in no way sell the laptop or a copy of the data contained on it to third parties. As soon as any situation arose that suggested such a transaction, our corporate investigators from Stuttgart were to inform the police.

Target Person of Aaden Detectives Stuttgart Initially Shows No Irregularities

There were still four calendar days left until the end of the suspicious employee’s employment. The first of these fell on a Sunday, on which the target person, observed by our Stuttgart private detectives, merely took a family outing to a community garden and showed no suspicious activity. During the four observation days that followed, the target person properly carried out fieldwork for the client of Aaden Detective Agency Stuttgart. Although a laptop repeatedly appeared that exactly matched the model of the stolen device, it was the company’s standard model, which the target person absolutely needed for work. It was therefore perfectly normal for her to carry this laptop with her.

On the last working day, the commissioning company informed us that the employee had properly returned his laptop with the correct identification number and therefore no longer had one in his possession. By the way, the observation team always consisted of at least one of our detective specialists from Stuttgart, and during the day also of an IT forensic expert who accompanied the surveillance in a supporting role.

Attempted Customer Poaching After the End of Employment

Things became interesting on the first day of the target person’s self-employment, because after some apparently private errands in the morning, she went to a company that, according to consultation with the clients of Aaden Detectives Stuttgart, was or is one of her regular customers. Naturally, customer poaching was contractually prohibited for the target person. After a relatively short time on site, the target person drove off again and went directly to another customer of the former employer, where the stay was again only brief. This was followed by a trip to a third customer, and this time the duration of the visit was noticeably longer. Apparently, there was quite a bit to discuss in the office. After almost two hours, the target person returned to her vehicle, took out a briefcase and a laptop, and reentered the customer’s premises. Externally, the laptop could not be distinguished from the usual company laptops of the clients.

Attempt at Deception Fails

The detectives deployed from Stuttgart immediately consulted with the management of the injured company. They were instructed to approach the target person at the next sighting and demand the return of the laptop. This plan could be carried out half an hour later. The target person appeared surprised and claimed that it was her own laptop. The detectives could feel free to look at the hard drive and convince themselves. Only standard programs were installed there.

First, our private detective from Stuttgart and the IT forensic expert checked the mechanical device identification number and found that it was identical to the number of the laptop the target person had returned to the client the day before. When confronted with this, the target person insisted despite the provably contradictory facts that she had not returned the laptop at all because no one had asked her to do so. The suspect thought he was extremely clever, because on the hard drive only standard programs such as Microsoft Office, an antivirus scanner, Adobe Reader, and the like were visible. The protectable information and the valuable company software had been hidden with a “beginner’s tool,” as the IT forensic expert later put it to the Aaden Detectives Stuttgart. He was able to extract this information very quickly with his own notebook while the target person paced nervously back and forth. It was also apparently not known to the former employee that the device identification number was not only physically present on the laptop, but could also be read from the motherboard. The result was clear: it was the stolen device.

Fraud Makes You Poor: Claim for Damages

A more in-depth IT forensic analysis of the laptop revealed that no sensitive data and, in particular, no data relating to the licensed software had left the device in the preceding months. The target person probably would not have had the know-how for the latter anyway, but the risk of the entire device being sold to specialists was, of course, still latent. As far as the detectives of Aaden Corporate Detective Agency Stuttgart have learned from the clients, no criminal measures were taken against the target person. An internal settlement was reached, which, according to the managing director, included a “substantial” compensation payment from the target person to the company.