Corporate Espionage

It includes the attainment of intelligence on an industrial manufacture; techniques, ideas or processes, recipes or formulas. It can also include seizure of operational information. In example: customer database, pricing, sales and marketing strategies, R&D, or prospective bids. It may involve trade secrets embezzlement, and may also involve technological surveillance.

This is commonly, but not solely linked to IT industries.

Intellectual Property Theft

Intellectual property theft encompasses robbing people and companies of their intellectual property. Intellectual property includes: ideas, inventions, trade secrets, software, proprietary products, movies, music, and creative designs

The harm it can cause your business

In case of a trade secret being embezzled, it can lead to success/failure. Corporate espionage is considered a real threat to businesses that depend on information.

Attempts to sabotage companies is also considered industrial espionage.

A disgruntled employee may appropriates information to harm the company. A competitor may seek information that will technologically or financially advance their business.

Computers are now key in exercising industrial espionage. This is due to the ease of information being copied or transmitted. Information is commonly stolen by being copied from unattended computers and laptops.

Worldwide, thousands of companies a day come under cyberattacks.  These cyberattacks are engineered by individuals operating in an organized way. These individuals have a deep knowledge of networks. They exploit malware and spyware and find vulnerabilities in computer software. They also use devices which stealthily switch mobile phones on, various recording devices and cameras.

DDOS – Distributed Denial of Service:  they use a compromised computer system and flood the system with requests. This causes a system shut-down, thus denying services to the rest of the users. This is used for the to sabotage the business.