In the Bitkom survey Wirtschaftsschutz 2026, 19 percent of affected companies name deliberately acting employees or former employees as perpetrators, and a further 23 percent name unwitting ones. A person's departure is one of the moments in which knowledge is lost most easily.
Leaving as a risk
Anyone who leaves a company takes knowledge with them that cannot be deleted. That is normal. It becomes dangerous when knowledge is combined with grievance: a promotion that went elsewhere, a dismissal, a conflict with management. These are precisely the people a competitor or a foreign service finds most interesting.
The job offer that is not one
The reverse route is just as common. A supposed headhunter, or a company nobody has heard of, invites someone to interviews. During the process, questions go far beyond the usual: projects, clients, technologies, organisational structures. In the end there is no job, but the knowledge has gone. MI5 identified more than 10,000 such covert approaches via professional networking sites in a single year.
How to recognise it
- The offer is clearly better than the market rate.
- The other side is more interested in your current company than in your abilities.
- Work samples, presentations or case studies using real data are requested.
- Conversations preferably take place abroad or through private channels.
What companies can do
- An orderly exit: remove access promptly, collect devices, hold an honest exit conversation.
- Take conflicts and grievances seriously before they lead to departure.
- Prepare key people for fake job offers, without holding a genuine move against them.
- Need-to-know: not everyone needs access to everything.
Loyalty cannot be ordered. But it can be cultivated, and it is the most effective protection against both routes.
Further reading: Bitkom, Wirtschaftsschutz 2026 · UK Government: Think Before You Link
