Homework Responses Wk 4

This week we learned more in depth about business espionage. A case that I chose to evaluate and analyze is one where the author of our readings Wimmer pretended to be a customer. By tricking the salespeople into believing he was interested in purchasing from them in order to gain information that would prove that the company he worked for had proprietary information stolen from them by this competing business. By asking about the technology and products they used he was able to determine they had in fact stolen information from the business he worked for. 

Really anyone can walk into a business and pretend to be a customer when in fact they are a spy. We call those secret shoppers where I come from. Since staff on the sales floor have no training in business spying they are more vulnerable to give information they do not realize could be detrimental to the business they work for. 

Modus Operandi is a Latin term in which means a group or individuals way of operating. "The Cyber-Espionage threat actor modus operandi includes gaining unauthorized access, maintaining a low (or no) profile and compromising sensitive assets and data" (The 2020 Cyber-Espionage Report pulls seven years of data to determine threat actors, motives and actions, 2020). In the case described above Wimmer was able to gain unauthorized access just by simply asking questions. His competitor also gain unauthorized access when they stole proprietary information. Spies rely on vulnerabilities to get what they want. A well experienced spy can gather the information they want all before ever being suspected of taking what does not belong to them. 

Wimmer, B. (2015). Business espionage: Risks threats, and countermeasures. Waltham, MD: Butterworth-Heinemann.