COLUMNS

Your Company’s Data Could Be Most at Risk in the Places You Least Expect

Scott Stewart

VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor

Dec 3, 2019 | 12:15 GMT

A corporate surveillance team examines security footage of an office entrance.

Corporate espionage remains a persistent and widespread threat to critical proprietary information -- and the financial future -- of many global businesses. This threat not only emanates from state actors, such as China and Russia, but from corporate rivals as well.

(FrameStockFootages/Shutterstock.com)

Highlights

Hostile actors seeking to steal critical corporate information will go wherever that information is located and use whatever tactics needed to obtain it.
Basing espionage risk purely on where the information is located can thus lead to security blind spots by neglecting places assumed to be "safer," such as European countries.
Because of this, corporate security programs must take a global approach to identify, segregate and protect critical data in every corner of the world where it can be found.

When asked why he robbed banks by a reporter, the notorious robber Willie Sutton apocryphally retorted "because that's where the money is." Sutton later denied having made this remark. But regardless of who (or if) anyone said it, the quote nevertheless highlights a fundamental truth of crime: criminals will select a target that has the item(s) they wish to steal. This same principle also holds true for corporate espionage. Your company's secrets are a target wherever they reside, including (and perhaps especially) in locations assumed to be less at-risk. Because of this, it's important to understand that espionage is a truly global and multifaceted threat -- and requires security programs equally robust in nature and scope to protect sensitive information from malicious actors....

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