Computer security
divya@2007
Corporateespionage.docxCORPORATE ESPIONAGE 3
ADDRESSING CORPORATE ESPIONAGE
Running Head: Corporate Espionage 1
The US federal law that governs the corporate espionage is the economic espionage. Espionage is mostly seen in private companies and sometimes state-owned companies become victims as well. People debate about sending secret shoppers into any store which you want to be watched and hiring a private investigator to see what they do. Things beyond that may get illegal, because acquiring commercial secrets that have monetary value to the business that owns them without consent of the owners of the company is against the law.
In this hypothetical situation we are discussing, David Doe is considered as the one who performed corporate espionage. We have to detect he is the real one who do this or not.
Detecting simple signs like checking employee behaviour can be done at the early stages. Management, HR and other officials should be well trained to check whether the employee is doing things right or not. Unhappy employees are considered one of the biggest risks in this area. It is evident that David is not satisfied with the company decisions. So, he should be under observation. Employees who expected a promotion but did not receive it, ones who have been harassed at work and people who had a closer relation with other competitor companies may warrant a closer observation. If an employee takes a form of material home without need or the one who show interest in matters not pertaining to the specified job duties they have been given, specifically matters of interest to other business competitors, found working for free hours without authorization and exhibit unexplained affluence also come under this umbrella. As David has worked hard for ABC, anyone could easily oversee this point as regular and let it go unnoticed but the HR needs to keep an eye on him no matter what.
We can start by checking if David had taken away any physical document or a digital data by means of any disk from the office since this is the easiest way to spy the company as by many former evidences; checking if he tried to access the data by rooting through bins without any consent of the senior officials or if he has planted any device that can transmit data anonymously after he left. We can monitor the activity by using things like camera to ensure the security. By this we can control any visual suspicious activity. Using cell phones in secure places should be identified like meeting room, corporate boardroom etc., because people can send any picture of any document and data without actually having hands on the physical document itself. Instruments like pocket hound should be used which scans all cell phone bands and vibrate to the security person there and we should make sure that whether any wireless activity is happening or not.
Implementing following safeguards should also help in preventing the same,
Shred Documents - companies should shred all documents before they get discarded because most of the information stolen is in physical form.
Avoid printing proprietary information - Sensitive information of the company should not be printed anywhere and should be done only when it is extremely necessary. If printed, it should be kept with high security before it reaches the intended party to ensure that the document is only exposed to the intended party directly.
Physical security - The physical documents such as hard copies should be kept in well secured rooms since that is also way to leak the data.
Copy-proof technology and other software side gigs - There are numerous software to keep the data safe. Organizations should invest in technology that prevents documents with sensitive data from being copied with the help of programs like Adobe Acrobat or PageMaker. Setting access controls within the software tools is possible nowadays. This ensures that only authorised parties can view or print specific documents. Viruses and other malware may sometimes be installed by suspicious workers. Licensed versions of anti-spyware and malware should be purchased and maintained to avoid such activities to have proper secure network system.
Sources:
· https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b9fYVG1FuY
· https://www.fasciagraphics.co.uk/blog/detecting-and-preventing-corporate-espionage
