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Increased calls for debugging ­services

Industrial espionage – stealing trade secrets, theft of intellectual property and databases, leaking confidential information – is not just the stuff of Hollywood movies.

Alan Carey, operations director of Justicia Investigations, says local companies are vulnerable to losing important data, which will not only impact negatively on their bottom lines and the viability of their businesses, but could also seriously damage their corporate reputations.

In a highly competitive environment and tough economic times, it is far easier and cheaper to expropriate information than to innovate. Leaked technical specifications could negate a massive investment in being the first to market with a new product. A copied customer database could shrink a market share advantage overnight, he warns.

Over the past few months Justicia has noted an upsurge in the number of calls from companies requesting debugging services. Leo Nardi, Justicia’s technical manager, adds that these calls are not only coming from South Africa, but extending upwards throughout Africa, from Botswana to Tanzania, as the rush to conquer African markets gathers momentum.

Finding concrete statistics to back up Justicia’s observations is not easy. Both globally and locally, underreporting is rife with companies preferring not to disclose that they have been the targets of industrial espionage for fear of losing customers.

Figures released by Ernst and Young (SA) suggest that industrial espionage is a $67 billion-a-year industry.

Perhaps the best indicator of the surge in illicit surveillance is a dramatic increase in the sales of bugging devices and equipment. Although, again, there are no South African statistics, but the US State Department estimates that over 700 000 eavesdropping devices are sold each year. With this comes an inevitable increase in the need for debugging services – and, in South Africa, a dramatic rise in the number of fly-by-night operations marketing them.

Carey admits the security industry has a bad reputation and there are a number of “one man operations” offering services that require significant experience and expertise as well as sophisticated equipment.

Nardi says that it is evident that the ICT industry is gearing towards more data storage and throughput. Many companies invest in good equipment, but then fall behind in adopting suitable security protocols or in configuring the equipment correctly to minimise risk. If you do not take into account your computers, then you are ignoring a large part of your risk profile.

Carey adds that companies need to tackle industrial espionage and adopt both reactive and proactive measures. “We encourage clients to introduce debugging policies. In addition to protecting and limiting access to confidential information, a debugging policy should help managers to recognise the signs – from the irregular conduct of an employee to physical clues of bugging activities having taken place. Companies also need to have their premises swept for bugs regularly.”

At the end of the day, he stresses the importance for a company to build a strong relationship with a trustworthy service provider.

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