NCJ Number
143607
Journal
Security Management Volume: 37 Issue: 6 Dated: (June 1993) Pages: 42,44-46
Date Published
1993
Length
4 pages
Annotation
The protection of intellectual property, including trade secrets and other proprietary information, poses a major challenge to security professionals.
Abstract
The findings of the 1992 Proprietary and Technology Theft Survey sponsored by the American Society for Industrial Security revealed that 32 companies reported dollar losses of $1.82 billion. The respondents also reported annual average expenditures of approximately $15,000 for formal safeguarding of proprietary information programs. Alvin Toffler has argued that information is now more important to the success of a business than is access to capital. However, businesses should no longer rely on the traditional approaches of physical security safeguards, computer security, and proprietary safeguard methods. A useful additional approach is competitive safeguarding, which combines the three proven processes of competitive intelligence, counterintelligence, and operations security. Competitive intelligence is a common business technique used to analyze both marketplace and competitor-specific information. Counterintelligence is a multidisciplinary technique. Operations security is a five-step analytical process that uses an adversary¦s perspective to find vulnerabilities to critical information.