• Posted by: Eng. Donya Bino
• February 17, 2026

7 Signs of Quiet Corporate Sabotage

Quiet corporate sabotage seldom presents itself via loud headlines or visible destruction and its movement is one which takes time, remains inconspicuous and typically happens from within (employees/contractors/former employees), but can also occur from outside sources having established a presence. 

The extent of the damage may go undocumented for months due to the accumulation of lost customers, degraded employee morale, leaking intellectual property, and increased cost until such time as it can be identified as related.

Here are the seven most common early warning signs that many companies miss until the harm is significant:
1. Small, Unexplained Performance Drops That Never Recover
Revenue, conversion rates, or productivity dips by 3–8 % in one department or product line… and the numbers simply never return to baseline. Management attributes these issues to "market conditions" or "seasonality," however the trend line continues to be flat or worsens slightly each quarter.

Why it’s sabotage: An "insider" (e.g. disgruntled employee; compromised account) quietly diverts leads, slows down processes or creates small frustrations (e.g. delayed approval processes; misfiled documents; changed pricing rules).

2. Repeatedly recurring IT glitches on specific machines or accounts that are difficult to replicate
Many employees experience frequent hard to recreate issues with their computers, including:
1. Disappearing files that reappear days later.
2. Emails disappearing from sent folders.
3. Applications that only crash for one employee.
4. People take extra long to log into their systems and receive random lock outs.

An IT technician "fixes" these problems each time, but they always seem to reoccur within a few weeks of the original problem.

The reason these issues may be caused by sabotage is because an "insider" is running scripts, deleting shadow copies, or changing local configurations to create frustration for the targeted employee, often with the goal of forcing them out or creating doubt about their work.

3. Long-Term Clients’ Sudden Consistent Shift in Sentiment to Negative
Clients who have been with you for years suddenly give you cooler feedback, delay payments and/or quietly shift parts of their business/priorities to competitors. When asked for feedback the response includes, “no specific reason, just not feeling it the same way.”

Why this is sabotage: Someone from within your firm is damaging your reputation by publicly criticizing you in informal channels, leaking minor, yet damaging, confidential information and/or creating artificial delays so that you appear as if you are non-responsive.

4. Persistent “Accidental” Changes to Key Documents and Data
Pricing spreadsheets have been altered overnight; contractual language has been deleted; project deadlines have been moved back with no explanation.

In the version history of these documents, changes are made from legitimate personnel accounts during odd hours (night time/weekends).

Why this is sabotage: An insider, who has access to these documents and data, is making minor changes that cause you to incur financial losses and damage your reputation, yet appear to be legitimate human errors.

5. One Department or Team Experiences a Long Series of Bad Luck
Repeated rejected proposals, vendor delays, missed due dates, and quality problems - only in one region or department and the company is operating as it should. 

Why? Some compromised or malicious individual simply wants to sabotage efforts of that group. If you think there is a compromised individual within that group, see if you can see what they are doing to cause trouble for them by closing out all follow-up emails, changing quotes, or directing people to the wrong place with their phones.

6. Unusual Hour or Location of User Accessing Data
There are log files indicating user logins from abnormal times or locations, but no evidence of theft or deletion. For example:
1. A Finance user logs in at 3:17 AM from an unrecognized IP address; no viewed file changes.
2. An Engineering laptop accesses the Internal cost savings repo at 2:00 AM on Saturday, no commits. 

Why is there sabotage? A hacker or rogue insider has created backdoor access, downloaded files, or otherwise introduced persistence or other plans of action without generating a high enough volume of will generate notice.

7. Morale Drops with Little-to-No Reason Especially for High Performers
High performers begin to become less engaged:
1. sick days increase(justified?)
2. initiative decreases
3. quiet quitting (or known?) 
4. abrupt resignations

As people leave the company and go on to other jobs they cite either 'the culture' or 'not growing'; but these lack specific examples of being mistreated, people employer has made no efforts at becoming engaged to with outgoing employee. 

Why is this sabotage? Saboteurs spread false rumors about others doing poor performing work, take credit for the success of others, and withhold information from those needing it to do their work, as well create delays when work is ready to be released and erode trust and momentum from inside the group.

If you notice multiple signs, there are a few things you can do:
1. Conduct a quiet access review: Who has access to what? Look for accounts that have not been logged in for extended periods of time and users who have more permissions than they should have.
2. Enable detailed logging: Use PowerShell script block logging (Event ID 4104) to enable SMB signing and keep track of process ancestry (Sysmon).
3. Conduct confidential pulse surveys: Ask employees whether they feel like information is being held back and if they have noticed unexplained delays in receiving or completing work tasks.
4. Audit timestamps on all files that have been accessed and modified to create a log of activity on each file.
5. Consider a silent external penetration test, specifically looking for insider-style sabotage vectors.

Quiet sabotage is hard to prove because it mimics normal friction. But once you see 3–4 of these signs together, the odds shift dramatically, it’s rarely coincidence.
The earlier you act, the less it costs. Most companies only realize they were targeted after the key person leaves or the revenue hole becomes impossible to ignore.