All but 7 of the states in the US have issued stay-at-home (aka “shelter-in-place”) orders. This has resulted in an unprecedented number of employees working from home.
With this sudden proliferation of teleworking, businesses need to take extra precautions to protect their valuable trade secrets.
A trade secret is anything that (i) gives a business a competitive advantage, (ii) has been and continues to be treated as a secret by that business, and (iii) is not generally known in the trade.
Virtually every business has trade secrets such as customer and supplier lists, pricing information, manufacturing processes, and marketing data.
Hopefully you already had measures in place to protect your business’s trade secrets prior to the pandemic, but you should now review those policies and procedures carefully since they were probably developed with a traditional workplace in mind.
Even if your policies and procedures don’t need to be modified, to protect your business’s trade secrets, you should remind all employees in writing that when they are working from home, they are still obligated to:
- keep trade secrets and other confidential information confidential and ensure that third parties (including spouses, partners, children, and roommates) cannot access that information
- beware of and protect against phishing, malware, and other threats to your business’s systems
- refrain from transmitting confidential information through personal email, text, cloud, or social media platforms
- shred unneeded copies of confidential material rather putting them in the trash or recycle bin (or, for employees without a home micro-cut shredder, store them securely until they can be taken to the workplace for shredding)
- avoid having phone calls and video chats that might expose confidential information in the presence of others
- use only secure WiFi (with a strong password)
- print confidential information only when necessary for work purposes
- have appropriate anti-malware software and all relevant software updates installed on all devices used to access confidential information
- use only company-supplied devices (if applicable)
It’s important for you to coordinate all remote work with your IT department or consultant, because there are numerous ways that technology can be implemented to protect your business’s confidential information.
Cybersecurity technology includes VPNs, firewalls, tracking/monitoring software, restrictions on access and printing, multi-factor authentication, encryption and even pop-up messages that remind employees when they’re accessing confidential information.
Please feel free to contact us if you need any assistance with drafting or updating your business’s trade secret policies.
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
