Thursday, February 24, 2005
Industrial espionage by computer -- is it real?
Scary headlines warn that "hackers" may steal your company's business secrets. Is this another scare tactic to sell newspapers and security products, or is something real happening?
Several real-life people have been hauled into court for trespassing on competitors's computers. Baseline Magazine lists several recent incidents of computer-based industrial espionage.
"Yes, but how big a problem is it really?", a healthy skeptic would ask. Nobody knows. Police don't have statistics, and a lot of incidents are never reported (let's face it, a lot are never detected).
I suspect exaggeration though. Ambitious prosecutors can get their names in the paper by tackling a glamorous "computer crime". And not all business secrets are really vital: do you think Coca-Cola would go out of business if someone learned to make something that tasted the same?
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Several real-life people have been hauled into court for trespassing on competitors's computers. Baseline Magazine lists several recent incidents of computer-based industrial espionage.
"Yes, but how big a problem is it really?", a healthy skeptic would ask. Nobody knows. Police don't have statistics, and a lot of incidents are never reported (let's face it, a lot are never detected).
I suspect exaggeration though. Ambitious prosecutors can get their names in the paper by tackling a glamorous "computer crime". And not all business secrets are really vital: do you think Coca-Cola would go out of business if someone learned to make something that tasted the same?
# posted by Frederick @ 10:44 PM Email to a friend:
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