Editing Industrial espionage (section)

==Use of computers and the Internet==

===Personal computers===
Computers have become key in exercising industrial espionage due to the enormous amount of information they contain and the ease at which it can be copied and transmitted. The use of computers for espionage increased rapidly in the 1990s. Information has commonly been stolen by individuals posing as subsidiary workers, such as cleaners or repairmen, gaining access to unattended computers and copying information from them. [[Laptop]]s were, and still are, a prime target, with those [[travel]]ing abroad on business being warned not to leave them for any period of time. Perpetrators of espionage have been known to find many ways of conning unsuspecting individuals into parting, often only temporarily, from their possessions, enabling others to access and steal information.{{sfn|Boggon|1996}} A "bag-op" refers to the use of [[Hotel|hotel staff]] to access data, such as through [[laptop]]s, in hotel rooms. Information may be stolen in transit, in [[taxicab|taxi]]s, at [[airport]] baggage counters, [[baggage carousel]]s, on [[train]]s and so on.{{sfn|Nasheri|2005|p=82}}

===The Internet===
The rise of the Internet and [[computer network]]s has expanded the range and detail of information available and the ease of access for the purpose of industrial espionage.{{sfn|DeWeese et al.|2009}} This type of operation is generally identified as state backed or sponsored, because the "access to personal, financial or analytic resources" identified exceed that which could be accessed by [[Cybercrime|cyber criminals]] or individual [[hacker]]s. Sensitive military or defense engineering or other industrial information may not have immediate [[Value (economics)|monetary value]] to criminals, compared with, say, [[bank]] details. Analysis of cyberattacks suggests deep knowledge of networks, with targeted attacks, obtained by numerous individuals operating in a sustained organized way.{{sfn|DeWeese et al.|2009}}

===Opportunities for sabotage===
The rising use of the internet has also extended opportunities for industrial espionage with the aim of sabotage. In the early 2000s, energy companies were increasingly coming under attack from hackers. Energy power systems, doing jobs like monitoring [[Electrical grid|power grids]] or [[Environmental flow|water flow]], once isolated from the other computer networks, were now being connected to the internet, leaving them more vulnerable, having historically few built-in security features.{{sfn|Piller|2002}} The use of these methods of industrial espionage have increasingly become a concern for governments, due to potential attacks by hostile foreign governments or terrorist groups.

===Malware===
One of the means of perpetrators conducting industrial espionage is by exploiting vulnerabilities in computer software. [[Malware]] and [[spyware]] are "tool[s] for industrial espionage", in "transmitting digital copies of trade secrets, customer plans, future plans and contacts". Newer forms of malware include devices which surreptitiously switch on mobile phones [[camera]] and [[Tape recorder|recording devices]]. In attempts to tackle such attacks on their intellectual property, companies are increasingly keeping important information "off network," leaving an "air gap", with some companies building [[Faraday cage]]s to shield from [[Electromagnetism|electromagnetic]] or [[Mobile phone|cellphone]] transmissions.{{sfn|Lohr|2010}}

===Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack===
The [[distributed denial of service]] (DDoS) attack uses compromised computer systems to orchestrate a flood of requests on the target system, causing it to shut down and deny service to other users.{{sfn|Nasheri|2005|p=112}} It could potentially be used for economic or industrial espionage with the purpose of sabotage. This method was allegedly utilized by [[Federal Security Service|Russian secret services]], over a period of two weeks on a [[Cyberwarfare|cyberattack]] on [[Estonia]] in May 2007, in response to the removal of a [[Soviet-era statues|Soviet era war memorial]].{{sfn|Anderson|2007}}