A spy could be an engineer, a maintenance man, a cleaner, an insurance salesman, or an inspector: anyone who has legitimate access to the premises. A spy may follow a guided tour of a factory and then get "lost". Some countries, such as Japan, have been reported to expect students to be debriefed on returning home. Academics, business delegates, and students are often thought to be used by governments in gathering information. Some countries hire individuals to do spying rather than the use of their own intelligence agencies. Such apparent behavior has been the focus of numerous industrial espionage cases that have resulted in legal battles. Individuals may leave one company to take up employment with another and take sensitive information with them. A patsy may be initially asked to hand over inconsequential information and, once compromised by committing a crime, blackmailed into handing over more sensitive material. Historically known as a "patsy", an insider can be induced, willingly or under duress, to provide information. " Moles", or trusted insiders, are generally considered the best sources for economic or industrial espionage. Secondly, a competitor or foreign government seeks information to advance its own technological or financial interest. Firstly, a dissatisfied employee appropriates information to advance interests or to damage the company. In practice, particularly by "trusted insiders", they are generally considered functionally identical for the purpose of informing countermeasures.Īgents and the process of collection Įconomic or industrial espionage commonly occurs in one of two ways. The United States government currently has a polygraph examination entitled the "Test of Espionage and Sabotage" (TES), contributing to the notion of the interrelationship between espionage and sabotage countermeasures. That espionage and sabotage (corporate or otherwise) have become more clearly associated with each other is also demonstrated by a number of profiling studies, some government, some corporate. For instance, attempts to sabotage a corporation may be considered industrial espionage in this sense, the term takes on the wider connotations of its parent word. In recent years, economic or industrial espionage has taken on an expanded definition. Economic or industrial espionage is a threat to any business whose livelihood depends on information. Although a lot of information-gathering is accomplished legally through competitive intelligence, at times corporations feel the best way to get information is to take it. Information can make the difference between success and failure if a trade secret is stolen, the competitive playing field is leveled or even tipped in favor of a competitor. Silicon Valley is known to be one of the world's most targeted areas for espionage, though any industry with information of use to competitors may be a target.
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This is also to prevent motoring media outlets from spoiling the model before its planned reveal.Įconomic and industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, including computer software and hardware, biotechnology, aerospace, telecommunications, transportation and engine technology, automobiles, machine tools, energy, materials and coatings and so on. Padded covers or deceptive decals are also often used. As well as orchestrating espionage on commercial organizations, governments can also be targets – for example, to determine the terms of a tender for a government contract.ĭuring testing, automakers commonly disguise upcoming car models with camouflage paint patterns designed to obfuscate the vehicle's lines. It may describe activities such as theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail and technological surveillance.
Or it could include sequestration of proprietary or operational information, such as that on customer datasets, pricing, sales, marketing, research and development, policies, prospective bids, planning or marketing strategies or the changing compositions and locations of production. It may include the acquisition of intellectual property, such as information on industrial manufacture, ideas, techniques and processes, recipes and formulas. In short, the purpose of espionage is to gather knowledge about one or more organizations. 9 Competitive intelligence and economic or industrial espionageįorms of economic and industrial espionage Įconomic or industrial espionage takes place in two main forms.7.6 Dongxiao Yue and Chordiant Software, Inc.6.5 Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.5.5 Israel's economic espionage in the United States.5.4 Industrial espionage as part of US foreign policy.1 Forms of economic and industrial espionage.