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Intellectual Property Theft Has Never Been Easier - Is Your
By CipherTrust, Sat Dec 10th
Intellectual property (IP) is at the core of any business.Confidential manufacturing processes, financial information,customer lists, digital source code, marketing strategies,research data or any other compilation of information used toobtain competitive advantage could be deadly to your enterpriseif it ends up in the wrong hands. Email-Based Communication Vulnerabilities IP can leavethe enterprise at any of a number of points. Failure to quicklyrecognize and protect these “soft spots” in your networksecurity could have tragic results for the long-term viabilityof the company. Attachment and content filtering Unless your emailsecurity solution includes robust attachment and contentfiltering elements, anyone with access to your email network cansend literally file cabinets worth of information to a privateemail account, to be retrieved at their convenience from anycomputer in the world. A single attachment can contain manyyears’ worth of confidential information, and if you allow it toleave your enterprise gateway, you may as well just publish it.
Intrusion prevention Intrusion prevention is anotherAchilles’ heel for companies with inadequate email security inplace. Even intermediate hackers can use email to gain access tothe company’s digital backbone unless the necessary steps havebeen taken to keep them out. Once these hackers have access tothe network, they can steal virtually anything stored anywhereon your network. For an example, we need look no farther backthan August 2004, when the University of California, Berkeleysuffered a network intrusion that resulted in the theft of thepersonal information of about 600,000 people. Email encryption Failure to encrypt email communicationcan also provide opportunity for would-be IP thieves. Messagesto trusted partners, customers or any other recipients outsidethe network can be intercepted and read by anyone withrudimentary knowledge of email systems. Encrypting theseconversations ensures that nobody but the sender and recipienthave the ability to read the messages contained within theemail. Phishing The explosion in phishing attacks, which utilizesocial engineering tactics to extract confidential informationfrom email users, has presented a completely new and extremelydangerous method of IP theft. Unwitting employees are an easytarget for phishers, who may pose as business partners, clientsor any other “friendly” sender in order to gain access tosensitive information. Viruses Viruses have proven to be another highlyeffective method of extracting
information from corporations.Virus writers can write simple programs that, once executed onyour network, mine for all sorts of data and send informationback to the virus writer, or to any other recipient. Severance Package, Indeed While your employees are yourgreatest asset, they have the potential to be your greatestliability as well. A disturbing, but not entirely surprising,fact is that most intellectual property (IP) theft isperpetrated by current and former employees. According to theU.S. Department of Justice, enterprises suffered $250 Billion inIP Theft in 2004. A 2004 survey questioned 400 business professionals about theirattitudes to IP theft. The research, conducted by Ibas, acomputer forensics specialist, revealed some trends that shouldsound some alarm bells within organizations unsure of their IPsecurity: - 69.6% of business professionals have stolensome form of corporate IP from their employer when leaving ajob.
- 32.6% of employees leaving a job took sales proposalsand/or presentations with them.
- 30.4% admitted to takinginformation such as customer databases and contact information.
- The most commonly used method for stealing IP is to sendelectronic copies of documents and files to a personal emailaccount.
- 58.7% think that taking IP is as, if not more,acceptable as exaggerating an insurance claim to cover theexcess charge.
- Only 28.2% think that IP theft is completelyunacceptable.
- The most common justification for IP theft wasthat the person had created the documents/files stolen and feltthey partly belonged to them.
Keep Your IP Where ItBelongs – In Your Company Preserving your intellectualproperty may be the most important reason to take the stepstoward a comprehensive email security approach. A solution thatincorporates elements of attachment and content filtering,intrusion prevention, encryption, anti-spam and anti-virus isthe only way to ensure that the digital lifeblood of yourcompany doesn’t find its way into the wrong hands. For more information about how CipherTrust’s IronMail can helpyour enterprise keep a lid on your intellectual property,download our FREE whitepaper, “Securing the EmailBoundary: An Overview of IronMail.” About the author:CipherTrust is the leader in anti-spam and email security. Learnmore by downloading our free whitepaper, “Securing the EmailBoundary: An Overview of IronMail” or by visiting www.ciphertrust.com.
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