Industrial Espionage in Cyberspace
- Chapter 7. Industrial Espionage in Cyberspace
- What Is Industrial Espionage?
- Information as an Asset
- Real-World Examples of Industrial Espionage
- How Does Espionage Occur?
- Steganography Used in Industrial Espionage
- Phone Taps and Bugs
- Protecting Against Industrial Espionage
- Industrial Espionage Act
- Spear Phishing
- Summary
- Test Your Skills
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Introduction
When you hear the word espionage, perhaps you conjure up a number of exciting and glamorous images. Perhaps you have visions of a well-dressed man who drinks martinis, shaken but not stirred, traveling to glamorous locations with equally glamorous travel companions. Or perhaps you envision some exciting covert operation with high-speed car chases and guns blazing in faraway exotic lands. Contrary to popular media portrayals, espionage is often much less exciting than those visions. The ultimate goal of espionage is to obtain information that would not otherwise be made available. Generally, espionage is best done with as little fanfare as possible. Blazing gun battles and glamorous locations tend to be the antithesis of intelligence gathering. Rather, information is the goal. If possible, it is best to obtain that information without the target organization even realizing that its information has been compromised.
Many people assume that such spying is only engaged in by governments, intelligence agencies, and nefarious international organizations, such as Al Qaida or ISIS. While those entities do indeed engage in espionage, they are certainly not the only organizations that do so. The aforementioned organizations desire to acquire information for political and military goals. However, economic goals are also dependent on accurate and often sensitive data. With billions of dollars at stake, private companies can become engaged in industrial espionage as either a target or a perpetrator. What company would not like to know exactly what its competitor is doing? In fact, corporate or economic espionage is on the rise.
Corporate or economic espionage is a growing problem, but it can be difficult to accurately assess just how great a problem it is. Companies that perpetrate corporate espionage do not share the fact that they do it, for obvious reasons. Companies that are victims of such espionage often do not wish to reveal that fact either. Revealing that their security was compromised could have a negative impact on their stock value. It is also possible, in certain cases, that such a breach of security might open the company to liability claims from customers whose data may have been compromised. For these reasons, companies often are hesitant to disclose any industrial espionage activities. Because you will want to protect yourself and your company, it is important that you learn about espionage methods and protections. In the exercises at the end of this chapter, you will run antispyware, key loggers, and screen-capture software so that you are aware of how they work and, hence, will be cognizant of the risks they pose. While we did cover those in previous chapters, we will expand on that in this chapter’s exercises.
