a typical German mid-range car not exactly a technical marvel but a highly complex machine nonetheless its components are the subject of thousands of patents the braking systems the gears the electronics which is all the intellectual property of the manufacturer and highly coveted information for spies and criminals worldwide the economic damage is enormous a study by management consultants KPMG suggests one in four companies is affected by intellectual property theft we have to assume there's a high number of cases we don't know about and the damage in each case can range from hundreds of thousands of euros
to several millions if you make a forecast based on the figures we know about then the overall damage is probably more than 10 billion euros a year earning million ba - above all its innovative and export oriented sectors that industrial spies have their sights on engineering the auto industry electronics companies and software manufacturers and increasingly banks that's because financial institutions often keep highly sensitive data about the financial status of companies or even entire nations but one problem is that few companies are willing to talk about cases where they've had plans or blueprints stolen they're worried
about damage to their reputation and possible harm to their business such as lost orders or a falling share price midsize companies are especially at risk because they're the ones developing innovative products and at the same time they lack awareness of the scale of the problem your course on tonymont there's only really big companies that have special departments dealing with data and information security for their business in small to medium sized businesses there are huge gaps industrial spies exploit these gaps and the perpetrators can be hard to spot a foreign business partner for example could in
reality beyond the payroll of another country Secret Service China and Russia in particular are known for resorting to dubious means to try to make up for their technological shortfalls or an intern at a company could well be spying for a competitor the battle for market share is becoming increasingly aggressive and even long-term employees could be hatching their own personal plans never farted on my fifty percent of the companies we talk to is spied on by someone inside the firm for all kinds of different reasons from personal enrichment to getting revenge on the company for something
gaining access to sensitive data is rarely difficult for someone who knows what they're doing they replace the memory card in the photocopier for example modern machines save copies of the files before printing them another classic trick leaving a harmless looking USB stick lying around if someone connects it to see what's on it they unwittingly install spy software even a shredder can present a security risk a scanner can be secretly installed inside it for example voice over IP phone calls are especially risky many companies are now using the Internet to save costs but it makes it
much easier for the calls to be tapped and then there's emails memos anything sent via the internet presents a huge security risk from daya that's why we urgently advise companies not to communicate any important business data via the internet internet community art viadon many German companies are dependent on high tech for their success and they have to invest in that technology to keep ahead of their competitors these days though that investment also needs to include high tech defenses against industrial espionage
