WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Many U.S. corporate leaders still do not take computer security seriously, Computerworld reported Monday.
The report suggested that the issue was one of the most important yet least understood security issues facing prominent American leaders of major corporations. It said that many chief executive officers in the United States still believed that the threat of economic espionage or trade secret theft was a minor concern for their companies.
Economic espionage or intellectual property theft are the two most tangible, common and destructive threats, whether carried out by company employees or competitors, the report said. Recent examples of hacks include Lightwave Microsystems, America Online, Casiano Communications, Avery Dennison, Toshiba and Lexar Media and Citroen and SigmaTel, it said.
Common complaints include the purloining of patented methodologies by Chinese competitors and their use in Chinese products, resulting in Citroen and SigmaTel competing against their own stolen products, the rpeort said.
Western companies regard state-sponsored economic espionage and intellectual property theft as a sophisticated and substantial threat. Analysts increasingly regard state-sponsored economic espionage and intellectual property theft as a worldwide issue not limited to U.S. businesses and researchers.
In a notorious U.S. case, in May 2001 the U.S. attorney in Ohio indicted Takashi Okamoto and Hiroaki Serizawa for the theft of intellectual property belonging to the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. In May 2002, Serizawa pled guilty to guilty to lying to the FBI about reported theft of research materials from Cleveland Clinic.
