Computershare insider loses USBs with stolen customer financial data

Computershare, one of the largest financial market services and technology providers in the world, has filed a suit with the Massachusetts District Court against former employee Kathyann Pace who stands accused of exfiltrating huge amounts of company documents following her resignation, reports Threatpost.

Pace, who resigned back in September, 2010, had kept the company laptop for nearly a month after her resignation.

When she finally returned it, the company has ordered a forensic analysis of the device and discovered that she had copied thousands of pages of sensitive company documents – which included personal and financial information of shareholders and customers, e-mail exchanges, and information about the company’s internal operations and processes – to two USB drives.

Following this discovery, the company has filed the suit against Pace in which it requested the former employee to return the data. She responded by saying that she has misplaced the portable USB drives.

When Computershare gained the right to examine her personal iMac and another USB drive, they discovered that the data was transferred onto them one day before she claimed she lost the USB devices she used to exfiltrate company documents.

In the end, the company was allowed to clear her personal devices of the data in question and has filed a civil complaint against Pace asking for the court to order her to pay the legal fees the company incurred suing her, and most importantly, to order her not to disclose any of the information contained on the USBs in question.