Corporate espionage is not a new concept. Spies have ‘assisted’ business expansions for centuries. But computers have added a new edge to the business informer’s toolkit. International boundaries can be crossed, tight security rings broken into, a company’s entire bank of information wiped out – all without moving from the comfortable confines of one’s chair at home.
The methods of computer aided espionage are numerous and infinite manipulations are possible. The ‘good guys’ are not sleeping either. New methods of data theft, prevention, internet security and obtaining computer forensics are being regularly developed, researched and applied for.
The Motives
What makes a person turn towards the murky world of computer espionage? The motives of criminals cannot be averaged, but a summary has been attempted below:
1. Rivalry: The most common motive behind corporate espionage. A company, whether big or small, will have competitors, and the best way to crush opposition is by knowing the rival’s moves beforehand. That is exactly where hackers come in. Sadly enough, once upon the term hacker had friendly implications, and meant software professional who devised perfectly harmless programs like computer games. Now, a hacker is a person who cuts his way into secure information banks and steals and misuses the data.
2. Employees with ‘other plans’ – Coming a proud second to hackers in the world of corporate spies are former employees. An over ambitious employee would always want to set up his own business. An easy and unethical way out is to steal the database of his present company. The business contacts, infrastructural information, strategies, policies, client database etc that he would therefore access is collectively known as the IP or Intellectual Property of a company. Apart from these entrepreneurs, there are employees who are about to leave for a better offer with another company, or hopes to get one by providing them information about his present workplace.
3. Revenge motive: Employees who have been maltreated, sacked, or are dissatisfied with the treatment meted out to them. A disgruntled employee would want to take revenge by stealing and selling his company’s IP to an eager rival.
4. Startups: This form of corporate espionage usually happens exclusively at the higher rungs of the management. If the CEO of a company wants to start his own start up, he would carefully secure all the IP he wants and take it with him.
Case Studies
The Pros- The
Clash of the Titans- Software giant Oracle has filed a lawsuit against rival SAP for stealing “thousands of proprietary copyrighted software products ”mainly through“unauthorized access”. SAP had apparently misused Oracle’s customer support website extensively to gain access to and steal the data. Oracle calls this “corporate theft on a grand scale”, while SAP has refrained from commenting so far. This reminds one of the massive clash between British Airways and VirginAtlantic in the early 1990’s – except that the advanced technology would make the present case more complicated.
The Former Employee- Patricia Dunn, former chairman of HP surrendered herself a few days ago on four charges of felony. Thanks to her powerful position, she had used fraudulent wire communications, misused database, got involved in identity theft, and was a part of HP’s spying campaign to a congressional committee. Interestingly, HP’s former senior lawyer has also been charged with her, along with a private detective, the head of a dat5a booking company Action Research Group, and one of its former employees. Quite an example of teamwork!
The Sad Case of Gary Min - Gary Min had worked as a scientist with Du Pont for 10 years, when he started talking with Victrex for a new job. He obviously didn’t tell his employer about this. Meanwhile, he quietly accessed 16,706 documents and more than 22,000 scientific abstracts to ‘impress’ his new employer. When he gave notice at Du Pont, the company, which had noticed his hyperactive access functions for sometime, informed the law. The FBI in turn told Victrex, who seized the laptop they had recently issued to Min. This laptop was equipped with hard drive deletion software but even that was not enough for Min to have destroyed the evidence. Therefore, when the FBI arrived at his house for a raid, he was found burning garbage bag loads of DoPont documents at his fireplace. Apart from losing the goodwill of both companies forever, Mr. Min is getting ready to serve 10 years in prison and pay a $250,000 fine. The IP he stole is valued at $400 million.
Let’s hope corporate companies stop bothering about the installation cost of these security devices, since what they stand to loseis always of considerably higher value.