An intelligence officer will always attempt to protect the identity of walk-ins and persuade them to remain in their jobs as agents in place. The first thing every intelligence officer learns, though, is that while walk-ins are good, agents in place are even better, because they can provide a persistent stream of intelligence. Cyber intrusion is a frequently used tactic for industrial espionage, but it is not the only one the threat from other espionage techniques, including human intelligence techniques, cannot be ignored.Īny intelligence service would welcome a foreign national who walks in carrying a briefcase full of highly classified documents. As a result, traditional espionage tradecraft has become an important factor in the field of industrial espionage. Today, the line separating Russian corporations from Russian intelligence agencies is often murky because numerous former intelligence officers have assumed senior positions in business.īeyond Russia and China, former intelligence officers also commonly move into senior positions in private corporations or found firms specializing in business intelligence, which major companies then engage to steal trade secrets from their competitors. The same goes for Russia, which has dramatically expanded its industrial espionage efforts under President Vladimir Putin. China has developed government programs aimed at achieving technical parity with the West, and its state-owned enterprises have close ties to its intelligence community. The Gift That Keeps on Givingįor many years, Stratfor has warned about the threat of foreign espionage to Western trade secrets. The buyer, China's Sinovel Wind Group Co., promptly canceled its pending business with AMSC.ĭespite the huge financial loss AMSC sustained because of this incident, the threat from insiders still employed at their companies may be just as damaging, if not more so. (AMSC) lost about $800 million in contracts when a former engineer from one of its subsidiaries sold the source code for wind turbines to its largest customer. In a case currently in federal court in Wisconsin, for example, energy technology company American Superconductor Corp. Some studies suggest that up to 59 percent of employees take sensitive information with them when they leave their jobs, in some cases costing corporations hundreds of millions of dollars. One-time losses like these pose a significant threat. Discussions of the topic tend to focus on one-hit wonders, those who steal proprietary information and release it to competitors or to the media. Threats from insiders come in many forms - including workplace violence, theft and sexual harassment - but let's focus on industrial espionage and intellectual property. The conference demonstrated the enduring interest in the topic, and for those who couldn't make it to Rotterdam, I offer this discussion. I also spoke on the tradecraft used by those trying to recruit insiders to commit industrial espionage. In April, Stratfor hosted a lunch meeting on insider threats for chief security officers attending the European conference of ASIS International in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The damage these employees can inflict may rival or exceed the harm caused by a one-time loss. Companies also need to remember the threat of low-key spies on staff who may quietly provide their handlers with sensitive facts and figures over months, years and even decades. When it comes to industrial espionage, "one-hit wonders" - employees, such as Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner, who take valuable proprietary information to a competitor, the media or a foreign government - are just half of the equation.
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