US companies lost up to $59 billion in proprietary information
and intellectual property last year, according to a report released
by the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), the US
Chamber of Commerce and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The survey found that the greatest risks for companies were
former employees, foreign and domestic competitors and on-site
contractors. Hackers were also considered a major problem. The most
common areas of infiltration were R&D, customer lists and
financial data, whilst the greatest impact of losses came through
increased legal fees and loss of revenue.
The Trends in Proprietary Information Loss Survey was conducted
earlier this year among 138 Fortune 1,000 companies and 600 SEMs
that belong to the US Chamber of Commerce and tracked looses
between 1st July 2000 and 30th June, 2001.
The authors of the report point out that intellectual property
assets are not typically tracked in corporate accounting systems.
For this reason, they “not well protected”, and many companies
don’t value them until litigation.
