McAfee's employees take trade secret to Tanium
27.06.2019

McAfee begins a court case against its former employees. The members of the sales team have allegedly leaked confidential information to the company’s competitor Tanium, endpoint security and systems management firm.

Three former employees are accused of the theft of trade secrets which were taken to Tanium, their next place of employment.

The corporate strategy, tactics accessible to sales employees who were taking high office positions – key deal managers and a director of finance. The violation is said to be a conspired cooperative action.

After one of the employees was lured by Tanium, he made them take his colleague on board, who would become Tanium’s employee in 2019. The company informed McAfee that one more employee is relocating to Tanium.

McAfee claims that the employees made the access to the secret details well-trodden before their dismissal was announced.

Corporate fraud is a serious issue but its prevention can be concerted more successfully than a detection of an accidental leak. Internal communications between employees who team up against management are clearly trackable with the help of a properly configured system.

The data was stolen and transferred via email, Google Drive, and unauthorised flash drives, the internal database was addressed with no particular purpose. Which specific documents were leaked is yet to be discovered.

The employees are sued for trade secret disclosure, and also have "breach of contract, tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy" on the list.

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