Corporate espionage, also called industrial espionage, is the covert acquisition of a business's confidential information for commercial advantage.
The targets are predictable: research and development, pricing and strategy, merger and acquisition activity, client lists, and the contents of sensitive meetings. The methods are varied, and they rarely look like the films.
Some of it is technical: a listening device in a boardroom, a compromised device, intercepted communications. Some of it is human: an insider who removes information on the way out, a contractor with unmonitored access, an employee elicited by someone who seemed harmless. And much of it is behavioural: information drawn out through conversation, social engineering or pressure, often without the source realising what has happened.
Any organisation whose information has value. The risk concentrates around moments of change and high stakes: a transaction, a dispute, a restructure, a major bid, a sensitive negotiation. These are the periods when information is most valuable to others and when normal vigilance is most distracted.
Because the threat spans technical, human and behavioural domains, so must the response. Technical exposure is addressed through TSCM. Human exposure is addressed through insider threat work and an honest assessment of access and culture. Behavioural exposure is addressed by understanding how information is elicited and by protecting sensitive discussions at the executive level.
The most effective protection is proportionate and quiet: understanding where the genuinely sensitive information sits, who can reach it, and how it could leave, then closing those specific pathways rather than treating every risk as equal.
Threat and vulnerability assessment, insider threat and behavioural work are delivered by Threat Advisory.
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