9 ways to find out whether your company is victim of industrial espionage (pt.2)

Remember the first part of the article?? Here comes the second.

6) Secure your files

If your employees are free to download files from your servers, they will also be able to resell or use them against your company. When important intelligence about clients, turnover, sales volume, brands and patents are easy to be unmonitored downloaded, a USB key will be enough to steal years of valuable research and business knowledge.

7) Verify accesses

Once you have set up a file activity monitoring system, run a random check on all accesses of sensitive files and folders. If you notice doubtful activity on behalf of employees that operate within a division that does not align with the type of file they have been accessing, you cannot rule out industrial espionage.

8) Keep track.

If your agents or your upper management have a work car, keep track of their movements in order to verify whether their usual itinerary varies. If someone is selling your critical data, they will have to meet, sooner or later, their buyer.

9) Tell a few lies

If you have doubts about an employee, spread some false information within a few circles adopting a systematic reasoning called “confirmation bias”. If your competitors acquire such false information, you will be able to close in on a few potential moles confirming thereby your suspicion of being victim of industrial espionage.

Have you always thought that industrial espionage only involved dodgy types with a square jaw and a Russian accent? Or were you expecting to find someone wearing a suspicious trench coat in your company’s yard? Do you look at the building next door picturing suited up agents conspiring inside waving aerial-like transmitters? Stop daydreaming. Industrial espionage is a serious business that can jeopardise your company, however small or large. In 99% of instances, industrial espionage does not come from the outside. It is your own staff, at all levels, who may pose a real threat from within.

Here are 10 easy tricks to understand whether you are at risk of industrial espionage with the most suitable techniques to counter-act it.

If you notice any of the signs described above in your staff, your business intelligence might be at risk. All your hard work, ideas and know-how gathered over years may be traded off to competitors in exchange of a trivial pay rise. Similarly, your staff may exploit your company’s know-how, break off and start their own business taking customers with them, failing to abide by the covenant not to compete.

Turn to a reliable investigation agency to avoid the risk of industrial espionage. Turn to the experts trusted by the experts. Turn to Carpinvest Group.