COLUMNS

An Era of Unparalleled Espionage Risk Is Upon Us

undefined and VP of Tactical Analysis
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor

Nov 5, 2019 | 10:00 GMT

Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the creation of a new initiative to crack down on Chinese intelligence officials stealing intellectual property from U.S. corporations through hacking and espionage during a press conference at the Justice Department on Nov. 1, 2018.

Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the creation of a new initiative to crack down on Chinese intelligence officials stealing intellectual property from U.S. corporations through hacking and espionage during a press conference at the Justice Department on Nov. 1, 2018.

(JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Highlights

  • China and Russia have become increasingly aggressive in their industrial espionage efforts, though the proliferation of espionage tools ensures they are far from the only threat actors.
  • Technology has also made it easier to hack into corporate systems remotely and to download massive quantities of data from inside an organization.
  • Combined with the spread of post-truth attitudes in the workplace, these factors create an environment rife with corporate espionage risk. 

Today, corporate espionage actors are busier and more successful than ever thanks to an alarming confluence of factors. China's and Russia's escalating great power competition with the United States, for one, is pushing them to more boldly and brazenly obtain Western companies' secrets. But the simultaneous proliferation of espionage tools, mobile devices, digital data and postmodernist thought has also made it so that even a low-level employee can now feasibly have both the means and motive to find and steal massive quantities of information.  All of these threats are formidable in their own right, and thus worthy of attention. But it's equally crucial to understand how they all tie together to fully capture the increasingly dire and incredibly multifaceted espionage risk facing today's businesses and organizations....

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