Comments on: Who’s stealing your corporate information now?

By: Bill Blake

Bill Blake — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Great feedback Peter! Your points are well taken. There is tremendous financial incentive for employees with motivation to sell trade secrets. We have seen this in both small and large companies over the last 24 months. I think senior management is starting to understand that they don’t have crown jewels under lock and key!

By: Ron Arden

Ron Arden — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:36:00 +0000

Peter,

You make some great points about eroding valuation. Companies that were giants in their industries like PanAm and Woolworth no longer exist. Who is to say that someone won’t steal confidential information from a global giant and put them out of business. Apple is one company that has kept a lid on things in the past, although their iPhone 4 problems earlier this year may be eroding that.

By: Peter Abatan

Peter Abatan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:04:00 +0000

Bill, while it made for fascinating reading there is an irony to it, because a lot of organisations do not fully know the extent to which they exposed to corporate espionage. Some organisations think that they are too small to be spied upon, while others cannot imagine the possibility of being spied upon, but all this does not really matter because unless the organisation takes the necessarily takes the right step to protect their confidential data it is still vulnerable, and once vulnerable it impacts the net worth of the business.

The net worth of a business itself could be evaluated in terms of monetary value as well as the trust placed in that organisation by the public. The latter is the most difficult to restore. Data security threats are everywhere from employees that want to take their employer’s ideas to start their own business to threats from new businesses in emerging nations and everything inbetween. Organisations should continue to review data security threats on a continuous basis to enable it to take the necessary steps to address mitigate against those threats because once you are behind the curve it’s game over.

I strongly believe that the competitiveness of businesses like Apple, Microsoft, General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Motorola, HSBC and other businesses can be eroded over the next 20 years if steps are not taken to stem the flow of sensitive information to younger and more hungry competitors. Protecting sensitive data should and must be a core objective of any business aiming to survive the 21st century.