SunPower Solar Plant - SunPower accuses SolarCity of data theft
Loyalty has taken a different face in today’s fast-paced, money-minded world. Employees run where the money is more. They don’t bother about their employer anymore. Whatever happened to loyalty and honesty?
Today’s news story about data breach shows to what length an employee can go to make money and break rules. You will get a feeling that you are watching a spy thriller!
SunPower Vs SolarCity
SunPower, the California-based, solar panel maker and power plant builder, sued its rival SolarCity and five ex-employees for allegedly stealing secured data and passing it on to SolarCity when they joined the company last year.
The suit
Apparently SolarCity misused the data by poaching SunPower’s customers. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. According to the suit, a 10-year veteran of SunPower, Tom Leyden, downloaded proprietary information from SunPower’s servers and its accounts onSalesforce.com just before he left the company to join its rival SolarCity. He joined as vice president of commercial sales last August. He later (ex- managing director of SunPower’s East Coast operations) recruited three SunPower employees – Dan Leary, Felix Aguayo and Alice Carthcart – to SolarCity. SunPower alleged that these three employees along with another ex- SunPower employee Matt Giannini, downloaded proprietary sales data from the company’s computers before resigning.
“The forensic analysis established that, shortly before heaving SunPower, defendants Leyden, Giannini, Leary, Aguayo and Carthcart connected personal USB devices and used them to steal tens-of-thousands of computer files containing SunPower confidential information and non-confidential proprietary information,”. “These files included at least quotes, deals, proposals, contracts, and files containing forecast analysis, market analysis, business analysis and information downloaded from the www.salesforce.com database.”
“Leyden connected at least three personal USB storage devices within days of leaving SunPower,” the suit adds. “At least one of these devices was a portable external hard drive with 2 terabytes of storage capacity.”
SolarCity’s statement
SolarCity’s commercial market share has grown significantly in the past few years and this growth threatens SunPower,”. “Over the past few months, following its acquisition by a foreign oil company, a number of SunPower’s best salespeople decided to join SolarCity.”
“SolarCity takes trade secret issues very seriously and we will ensure that we act in accordance with the law,” the company spokesperson further added.
About SolarCity
SolarCity was the brain-child of Lyndon and Peter Rive and is one of America’s largest solarinstallers. Tesla Motors’ chief executive, Elon Musk is the chairman of SolarCity’s board of directors. Till date it has completed more than 17,000 installations.
About SunPower
SunPower designs and manufactures high-efficiency solar cells and solar panels for residential, commercial and utility clients and boasts of more than 5,000 employees worldwide.
How can Alertsec help protect data?
Organisations are now made aware about their data security and are implementing data encryption techniques. Alertsec uses encryption software to protect data from breaches and theft.
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