1. Digital Property Theft & Espionage:
- Data Exfiltration: Employees can easily copy and transfer sensitive data (client lists, R&D, financials, source code) via email, cloud storage (Dropbox, personal Google Drive), USB drives, or even encrypted messaging apps. The scale of theft is now terabytes, not paper documents.
- Intellectual Property Theft: Stealing digital designs, software algorithms, or proprietary processes is as simple as a file copy. Remote work makes this even harder to monitor physically.
- Shadow IT & Unauthorized Resource Use: Using unauthorized software or cloud services to complete work can inadvertently (or intentionally) move company data to insecure platforms, violating policies and creating data leaks.