Skip to content

Suspicion that a leaving employee copied data

A sensitive topic. Facts first, decisions second. Do not accuse before you know what happened.

Try this first

  1. 1Disable the account immediately (block sign-in) if they are already gone. If still employed: do nothing visible until you have advice.
  2. 2Microsoft 365 Audit Log (Audit Standard has been available in all Business/Enterprise tenants since late 2023 with 180-day retention; 1 year or more requires Audit Premium / E5): search for activities like FileDownloaded, FileSyncDownloadedFull, MailItemsAccessed in the month before departure.
  3. 3Check OneDrive and SharePoint sharing logs: did they recently share links externally?
  4. 4For serious cases: preserve the device (laptop, phone) without modifying it. Forensic analysis needs an untouched disk.

When to bring us in

This is not DIY territory. Call us or a lawyer. We do the audit-log investigation and preserve evidence properly; the lawyer handles any legal track.

See also

None of the above fits?

Describe your situation below. We pass your input plus the steps you already saw to our AI and return tailored next-step advice. If it's too risky to DIY, we'll say so.

Who are you?

For the AI question we need your email and company, so we can follow up if the AI gets stuck, and to prevent abuse.

Limited to 2 questions per hour and 5 per day, kept lean so the AI stays useful. For more, contacting us directly works better for you and us.

Or skip the DIY entirely

Our Managed IT clients do not look these things up. One point of contact, a fixed monthly price, resolved within working hours.