What You Need To Do After the OPM Breach The breach of security at the UP Office of Personal Management is not bad, it is worse than you ever could know – and then a bit more. 14 million SF 86 Forms and … Read More
Articles under "OPSEC, Economic Espionage & Competitive Intelligence"
Defense Against Executive Recruiters
Defense Against Executive Recruiters Executive Recruiters are an essential part of businesses looking to find the right person for the right job at the right time. While this is fine if you are hiring, it is not so … Read More
CI and M&A
CI and M&A It is a fact of life that many companies prefer to steal their ideas for products as opposed to license them. Every manager is looking for their edge. Add to that the massive intelligence gathering … Read More
Spying On Start Ups
Spying On Start Ups If you want to get an idea of what a competitor is doing, start with their web page and internet presence. Check the pages for the code and look for the key words being used by the pages. Look … Read More
OPSEC best practice
OPSEC Best Practice By John McCarthy, CCP and OPSEC President When conducting OPSEC assessments and surveys for Department of Defense (DoD) and other Government acquisition programs include Supply Chain Risk … Read More
Understanding Your Competitor’s Slackers
Understanding Your Competitor’s Slackers The best way to understand a company is to look at the company from the point of view of those who wish to subvert the company. Exterior subversion can come in the form of … Read More
Using a Competitor’s Regulatory Breaches
Using a Competitor’s Regulatory Breaches It is a truth that people can be very honest in a dishonest way. Governments are on a mission to find breach of sanctions, money laundering laws, insider trading, and … Read More
Due Diligence in China
Due Diligence in China For many years FE&E, Inc had an office in China. We got to see the rise of the entrepreneurial China. We also got to see the future currents and I am sorry to say – we have been more … Read More
LinkedIn Premium as a Data Tool
LinkedIn Premium as a Data Tool LinkedIn is an undisputed success. It is a great tool for reaching out to professionals. I would even say that if you are not on LinkedIn and participating in some of your … Read More
The iPhone Hacks The iCloud
The iPhone Hacks The iCloud Any read of Aegis has seen our comments about security and the cloud – THERE IS NO SECUTIY IN THE CLOUD. Yet again, we are confounded by another attack on cloud computing. Via the … Read More
Online Business Strategy and Media Buying
Online Business Strategy and Media Buying How would you like to have a guaranteed promotional strategy for your business? Would you like to know exactly how much every dollar you spend in advertising will … Read More
Warehouse Receipts
Warehouse Receipts What is a warehouse receipt? It is a title of goods stored by a warehouse. This title, or warehouse receipt, can be in a bearer form or it can be issued to in entity specific form. From the … Read More
Carl, the Loud Investment Banker
Carl, the Loud Investment Banker Location: Birmingham, Alabama airport. Point of reference: Carl is a very loud investment banker taking on his cell phone. Carl was making a long call and walking up and down … Read More
TiO2 and China
TiO2 and China The story of Pangang Group, of China, a State Owned Enterprise in China, Walter Liew and Robert Maegerle of California ended in March with the two individuals being convicted of espionage. It also … Read More
Who Was That Man?
Who Was That Man? This is short simple and the point. Do you have any idea who you are doing business with? Do you have any idea of their background or credentials These are a couple of quick stories from very … Read More
Venture Capital
Venture Capital I, one of your editors, often invest my time and work with small ventures. Start up companies with no revenue or just starting to make revenue in exchange for some deeply discounted stock or stock … Read More
The NSA Flap…
The NSA Flap... Do I believe the NSA listens to just about all electronic communication it can get its jumpers on? - Sure, I do. Am I upset? - Not really as it was to be expected, having read all of V. James … Read More
Don’t Ever Write This Down!
Don’t Ever Write This Down! Don’t write down plans, don’t use the same password for every account, don’t share your personal information with people who may hack into your accounts, and don’t carry your … Read More
How Rampant Bribery Is Corrupting U.S. Immigration Integrity?
How Rampant Bribery Is Corrupting U.S. Immigration Integrity? We recently came across an article, entitled HOW RAMPANT BRIBERY IS CORRUPTING U.S. IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY. This article described two recent cases of … Read More
OPSEC and New Product Development
OPSEC and New Product Development by Daniel W. Phillips, OCP, PSP A key and sometimes-overlooked factor in the successful development and launch of a new product or technology is protecting it from prying eyes in … Read More
Sensitivity Analysis and Making An Enemy
Sensitivity Analysis and Making An Enemy In any assessment using competitive intelligence you need to find you competitors products that are making them the largest margins and offer your competing product at cost … Read More
An Exercise in Business Continuity
An Exercise in Business Continuity In a conversation with a senior officer of a large university we discussed operational continuity and what is important. It gave me a lot to think about, what does a major … Read More
OPSEC and IPCI, You’re Never Too Small.
OPSEC and IPCI, You’re Never Too Small. Is it fair that the large and the well moneyed companies steal a start-up company’s IPCI? Fairness does not matter, this is what happens. Small companies, entrepreneurial … Read More
Trends In Intellectual Property Loss
Trends In Intellectual Property Loss - A Private Survey Intellectual property loss is defined as any theft, misappropriation, or inadvertent disclosure of an organization’s intellectual property or proprietary … Read More
No More Saturday Mail
No More Saturday Mail A vast majority of those surveyed both in business and at home say that the loss of Saturday mail delivery will not affect them very much. But let’s view this in a bit of a different … Read More
United States v Nosal
United States v Nosal In United States v. Nosal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that an employee’s use of confidential information, in violation of their duties to the company and for … Read More
Patent Search Tools
Some good patent search tools when doing patent research or looking for help with the research. Resources The US Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov/) has an excellent pubic interface. And while not the … Read More
Patent Whiners
I have been reading a series of stories in the Wall Street Journal, Tech Republic, Business Week, Wired etc.. about what a horrible world it is as people are working with Patent Trolls to enforce patent right on … Read More
Data Extortion
It is not new but it is becoming much more common. Many hackers have found that information that is stolen, much like jewelry, has a poor resale value. An insurance company is more likely to pay more for the … Read More
Open Source Innovation
We all get it, innovate or die. More acutely we must craft profitable innovations that are unique where above average margins can be harvested, at least for a bit of time. The idea of Open Innovation (OI) is … Read More
Meaningful Nondisclosure and Noncompetition Agreements
As OPSEC professionals we are only too aware that the level of our security is exactly as low as our weakest link. This becomes painfully obvious when our suppliers and contractors hire missing links or any other … Read More
Indicator Behavior and Pressures Lead to Problems in Media.
Plagiarism, adjective festooned interviews, and other cases of reporter misconduct are indicators of a dying business model. Newspapers are not making much money so they have to be ever more scintillating to get … Read More
Hacked Off
Hacking and being hacked once was an embarrassment, a red-faced moment. Now it is part of life. For example your humble editors have been part of an ongoing denial of service attack on his cell phone voice mail … Read More
Food Riots in the EU?
aka The Pingo Doce riots. Pingo Doce is a chain of stores in Portugal with some 300 to 350 locations. It was May 1st and while May Day is not a big holiday in the US, for many around the world - especially … Read More
Laws are 20 years behind the IPCI it is Supposed to Protect
Sergey Aleynikov was charged with and convicted of downloading and stealing source code from his employer Goldman Sachs. He was convicted under the National Stolen Property Act and the Economic Espionage Act and … Read More
More Bogus Venezuelan Bonds
This may actually be the final story on Venezuelan Bonds - but I doubt it. This time the story has morphed with some truly amazing schizophrenic tones. Our group was asked to assist a person who wanted us to help … Read More
Overcome The “Not Invented Here” Syndrome
By Gail Kasper, Author and Mentor of the Top 1% Club (http://www.gailkasper.com) Are you familiar with NIH, the “not invented here” syndrome? Perhaps it’s rampant at your place of work. In essence, it’s a … Read More
Mind The Snail Mail
We seem to be very conscious of e-mail security, but are often oblivious to the security of the "snail mail" we receive at our homes and offices. Recently, in our role as consultants in the due diligence arena, we … Read More
China’s Legacy Bonds
[caption id="attachment_4133" align="alignright" width="313"] China Bond 1911[/caption] I have been fascinated over the past several years by traffic in Post 1911 Chinese Bonds. Not the numismatic traffic -- but … Read More
New Internet Domain, dot-XXX
It will be a small note in history that a new top-level-domain (TLD) has become available, as there are already so many, e.g., .za, .com, .bs, .cz, .org, .gov, .edu. No, the historical note will be the instant … Read More