Posted on 04/07/2005 3:07:40 AM PDT by wingblade
Provizio's Conservative Estimates Put Information Leaks Costs to U.S. Companies at $133 Billion in 2004
MERIDIAN, Idaho, April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Provizio announced today the release of its new public report, saying U.S. companies are facing greater threats due to loss of proprietary company information through deceptive competitor research, also known as exploitive social engineering, as well as through corporate espionage. Entitled, "Counter-Intelligence for Today's Fortune-1000 Company," this free report concludes that the cost to U.S. companies from lost proprietary information surpassed $133 billion dollars, up from $59 billion in losses in 2002 -- a substantial increase from $45 billion in 2000.
"What makes these numbers more shocking is that these results only pertained to information the victim company was aware of having lost and could in fact quantify," said Provizio's CEO, Tim Rhodes, the company's foremost expert in information security and counter-intelligence. "Since companies and their employees rarely know their competitors are performing exploitive social engineering on them, estimating its full cost is difficult." Rhodes added that information loss from inadvertent and intentional employee leaks, as well as from corporate espionage, is also a significant contributing factor.
The report also concluded that nearly 75% of all confidential and proprietary information is lost from information leaks and exploitative social engineering. Despite these findings, a majority of companies continue to focus most of their security efforts on traditional Information Technology (IT) security to protect their highly valuable, confidential and proprietary information.
"Companies in many industries are dedicating tremendous resources to protect IT systems, as much as four percent of their IT systems," said Provizio's CEO. "This is akin to building better mouse traps, while leaving the refrigerator door open."
Provizio's recent vulnerability assessments of major U.S. companies found that the vast majority of the companies assessed were "wide open" to proprietary information loss. Provizio investigators routinely were able to collect information about proprietary pricing, business strategies, customers, merger and acquisition strategies, key product revenues, and many other important types of information that companies would not want public or in the hands of their industry rivals. The study included assessments of several industries, including: healthcare, telecommunications, professional services, financial services, insurance, information technology, and "high-tech" industries.
In the same study, Provizio also discovered that key areas of information leaks and exploitative social engineering vulnerabilities most often exist in the following company departments: public relations (PR) departments, information technology (IT) departments, sales & marketing employees, and senior level executives.
The free report can be downloaded at: www.provizio.com/reports
About Provizio
Provizio is a leader in primary competitive intelligence as well as in counter-espionage & information security services. More than sixty Fortune 500 companies rely on Provizio's intelligence services to obtain unmatched primary intelligence capabilities that are tailored to fit each client's specific needs as well as protect them from outsiders attempting to gain access to valuable company information. Provizio's staff consists of career intelligence professionals with significant experience in primary intelligence research and analysis and counter-intelligence services. They excel at their mission in providing unmatched proactive, actionable primary competitive intelligence and information protection services. Provizio can be reached at www.provizio.com.
Sign me up for domestic corporate counter-insurgency missions. Will work for tips only!
I work for a household name and we received word Tuesday that changes are coming. USB thumb drives are being banned. No more source code on laptops that go home with you. No blank media permitted in the building. No documents, written or electronic, permitted to leave the building.
They blame it on SOX, but I have my doubts.
SOX?
Why not just say everybody?
Does anyone know what "exploitative social engineering" is?
"Exploitative Social Engineering"
Could it be the kind of thing that stems from activist movements like "Project Detroit"? It was Arianna Huffington and RFK Jr. seeming to come on strong about it's anti-SUV sentiments. They want to see more hybrid stuff and maybe ESE is something out of that playbook.
I've never heard of Project Detroit.
sorry, I had it freakin' backwoids...
www.thedetroitproject.com
LOL. I've never heard of The Detroit Project either, but I'll take a look.
Simple solution, just don't hire Sandy Berger.
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