This article was reprinted with permission from the July 1998 issue of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel magazine. ASIS surveyed the Fortune 1000 and 300 Fastest Growing Companies and concluded that 56 percent of the companies that responded to the survey experienced one or more actual or suspected incidents of trade secret theft. This is due to several factors.
Information is easier to steal today.
Corporate security measures that protect information are no longer sufficient. Valuable information can be slipped into a pocket undetected. What is more worrisome is that the largest threat to companies are employees who steal trade secrets or divulge them at subsequent jobs. There is also a significant threat from foreign powers who, no longer preoccupied with the cold war, are using their sophisticated intelligence services to steal information from U.S. corporations. The pervasiveness of theft suggests that all companies should safeguard trade secrets.