Case Study: Tesla prevents insider data exfiltration and speeds breach detection with Lepide

How Lepide Would Have Helped to Prevent the Tesla Insider Threat

This theoretical case study uses Tesla’s May 10, 2023 insider breach as an example: allegedly two employees exfiltrated roughly 100 TB of data, exposing about 75,735 individuals and more than 23,000 documents containing sensitive employee, customer and IP information. The incident — described publicly as “insider wrongdoing” — risked severe GDPR fines (up to an estimated $3.3 billion) and significant reputational damage.

Lepide’s Data Security Platform could have reduced the likelihood and impact by enforcing least‑privilege access to remove excessive permissions, continuously monitoring user behavior to flag abnormal bulk copying, applying DLP and data classification to detect or block unauthorized sharing, and providing detailed audit logs for rapid forensic analysis. In combination these controls may have limited exposed data, sped containment and investigation, and reduced regulatory and reputational fallout.

Tesla