In Seyfarth’s second installment in its 2021 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Richard Lutkus, Bob Stevens, and Matthew Simmons outlined best practices and steps companies can take to continue to protect intellectual capital, including policies, protections, security concerns, and agreements needed to protect information in a remote environment.
As a conclusion to this webinar, we compiled a summary of takeaways:
Technical takeaways to avoid your trade secrets and IP ending up leaked on the dark web:
- Train your employees to be suspicious of emails and test them against phishing attacks
- Get proper malware detection software for servers and endpoints.
- Turn logging on and retain logs as long as practical so you can have something to investigate if an issue occurs.
- Keep ANY critical IP/trade secrets encrypted at rest on your file servers!
Pre-termination checklist:
- Update employee policies and procedures regarding confidential information, BYOD policy, obligation of employee to update location, notice of resignation period, non-use of personal and cloud accounts, return of company property and compliance with return obligation, company asset/hard copy tracking, and training on new policies.
- Update restrictive covenants and provide sufficient consideration for the updated covenants at the time the employee executes the new restrictive covenant.
- Complete a company versus personal property assessment.
- Complete pre-termination forensic searches.
Remote employee resignation checklist:
- Notify IT and ensure system access is disabled as soon as possible.
- Ensure all devices (phones, computers, drives, etc.) are returned and postpone reissuance for as long as fiscally able.
- Conduct exit interview and remind resigning employee of restrictive covenant obligations.
- Preserve and monitor email account and phone.
Visit our Trade Secrets Webinar Series page to view recordings of all our webinars.