Why Most Businesses Make Internal Theft Easy (And How to Stop It)

No employer wants to think that one of their employees would intentionally do the business harm, but studies show it’s more common than you might expect. Indeed, it’s so common that the primary threat to businesses isn’t strangers, but those in their employment, with research suggesting that internal theft occurs around 5 - 7 times more than external crime.

That information isn’t designed to scare you. It’s designed to provide a wake-up call if your current internal security measures aren’t as robust as they could be. In this post, we’ll run through a few ways that businesses unintentionally facilitate internal crime, as well as offer some handy tips on how to avoid it.

There’s Access For All

Many businesses make internal crime more likely by allowing all employees access to all parts of the organization. This usually happens because it’s how the business did things when it was a small company of just a few people, and things were never updated. In that scenario, a new recruit could walk into a high-value area on their very first day.

The best way to avoid this is to limit access to areas/information based on role. Think of it as the physical equivalent of the ‘least-privilege access’ rule that you see in the IT world.

There’s No Data Trail

If something does go wrong, then having a data trail of who was in the building when it occurred can go a long way towards finding out what happened.

The problem is that many businesses don’t have that data, and the employees who may cause the business harm know it. If there’s no secure access to the building, then an employee can simply say that they weren’t there. Using an access control solution is an effective way to get timestamped data about who was in the workplace and when, and that alone can make employees think twice. After all, they’re less likely to commit a crime if they know there’s a data log showing that they’re in the building.

There’s No Offboarding Process

An ex-employee who hasn’t had their privileges revoked will not only be in a position to commit a crime against the business — if they’re disgruntled, then they’ll also have a motive. Many businesses take an ad-hoc approach to offboarding, especially in the early days, but it’s important to put together a standardized, repeatable process, one that automatically revokes access on the day the employee leaves.

There’s No Way To Report Suspicions

Criminals rarely commit a crime just once. They do it for as long as they can get away with it. All too often, criminal employees will act in suspicious ways that arouse the attention of colleagues. However, if there’s no obvious way for an employee to report that suspicion, then there’s every chance that it remains hidden. Some employees shy away from speaking up because they fear backlash. Opening anonymous lines of communication and encouraging staff to speak up can make it much more likely that a colleague makes a report.