Competitive or commercial intelligence is a legitimate business process; however, the illegal acquisition of competitive intelligence amounts to commercial espionage.
Commercial espionage affects virtually the entire corporate community and the incidence of such acts is growing at an alarming rate. In recent years, the ability of a business to protect confidential information has been seriously undermined by the efforts of determined and highly skilled industrial espionage experts and the inadequate protection systems that companies have in place.
Proprietary information can be gathered by hostile governments, local and international competitors, criminals, terrorists and individuals, who are seeking sensitive information from a specific organisation. This type of competitive intelligence could be around such areas as sophisticated technologies, manufacturing processes, software and hardware, research and development, formulas, inventions, cost structure, financial data and trade secrets. The damage to an organisation can be extremely harmful and in certain circumstances fatal.
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