Industrial Espionage

Industrial espionage comes in many forms; the most commonly seen is the surveillance type methods, usually seen in the secret spy books and television programs. However, the truth is far from the glamour of the fictitious man who find out about the wrong, puts it right and gets the girl. In the real world this problem is a very real thing and one of the worst types of industrial espionage is the selling of trade secrets.

But this is only one cell of a much bigger definition, in recent years the definition of what is seen as industrial espionage has increased to cover such areas as; attempts to sabotage a corporation, in some cases, malware and spyware has even entered the arena of corporate espionage. And as earlier mentioned there are the more obvious kinds of industrial espionage such as theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail, and technological surveillance.

When such occurrences of industrial espionage happen a full fraud investigation needs to take place. Fraud investigation may seem like a useless step once the secret has already been sold, the data already stolen or the product or even factory already destroyed, however, by finding out who stole it, usually they can find out whom to and thus stop its distribution.

In such areas as a pharmaceutical company there is a lot of money at stake, for example, not only does research and development cost into the area of millions but it must also be accepted before it can be sold. Therefore if the information of how to make the new drug is sold fraudulently, not only does is mean the drug company is out of pocket but it also means that if not fully tested the drug could end up causing serious side effects to those who buy the 'rip-off' drug.

The use of malware and spyware is slightly more complex then it would first seem, as not only can such software/viruses cause a great deal of damage to a companies network and database if it is corrupted but the same viruses and self installed software can also steal the data collected in order to try and take away their competitors suppliers to gain an advantage or to sell the information on to rival companies. The more secretive and probably the more dangerous is the cases where bribery and blackmail are used, this can be from a simple threat to out some kind of secret they have hidden to threatening them personally.

In order to keep your business safe you should not only have the most up to date anti spyware and anti virus software but you should also make such you take security seriously by implementing precautions such as access levels whereby a person can only access so much information before needing higher clearance. As well as security both externally and internally to ensure your employees are keeping to the work they should be and are not deviating into files they should not need to.

In the occurrence of misconduct in your company, fraud investigation procedures should be carried out to find out the damage done and the guilty personnel.

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