Global security firm Symantec also agreed that such attacks are on the rise. “Cases of corporate espionage are certainly increasing in India.
“By persistent attack on the company, cyber criminals get access to intellectual property of the firms. Such data is potentially used by competition,” said Shantanu Ghosh, Vice-President, India Product Operations, Symantec.
He added that other than losing important data, the attacks have financial implications too.
According to a study by Symantec’s State of Enterprise Security Survey 2010, the average revenue lost by Indian enterprises due to cyber attacks was over Rs. 58 lakh. Image: Corporate espionage is increasing in India. Photographs: Reuters
Seems Google is getting information about senior employees being recruited by Twitter, in order to make counter offers, TechCrunch reported.
Google offered about $150 million to keep two senior product managers offered the chief product role at Twitter earlier this year (though Business Insider claims those numbers are “tens of millions of dollars off” — but huge numbers regardless of the exact dollar figures).
“There’s lots to say about the statement Google is making with these counteroffers. “Don’t mess with us,” comes to mind. As well as “If you’re a Google employee and you aren’t out interviewing at Facebook, Twitter or Zynga you are a moron.”
Regardless, the fact that large fortunes are being handed out to mid level technical managers is somewhat of a red flag in general. That kind of money is usually reserved for founders of companies that make it to IPO. Actually, most IPO founders make substantially less than that.” TechCrunch reported.
Meanwhile, the information Google is getting access to suggests someone at Twitter is sharing information. Twitter had a problem with leaked info a couple of years ago when their internal strategy meeting notes were made public and Google may have started taking notice.
“Much of the discussion at Twitter meetings throughout the past six months revolved around dealing with Google and Facebook. In a March 13, 2009 management meeting, for example, during a discussion of a search deal with Google, the fear is expressed that “Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet.” But almost immediately afterwards, someone asks, “Can we do to Google what Google has done to others?”
NEW YORK, N.Y. – A lawsuit challenging a law that lets the United States eavesdrop on overseas communications more widely and with less judicial oversight than in the past was reinstated Monday by a federal appeals court that said new rules regarding surveillance had put lawyers, journalists and human rights groups in a “lose-lose situation.”
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it took no position on the merits of the lawsuit brought by those in jobs that require them to speak with people overseas, saying only that the plaintiffs had legal standing to bring it against the latest version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan had sided with the government in a 2009 ruling, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue since none of them could show they were subject to the surveillance. He said Americans’ fears that their conversations would be monitored and their rights violated were “purely subjective.”
Attorneys, journalists and human rights groups whose work might require speaking to possible surveillance targets had brought the lawsuit on constitutional grounds, saying new government procedures for eavesdropping on international communications forced them to take costly and burdensome steps to protect the confidentiality of their overseas communications.
In a lengthy written ruling, the 2nd Circuit said the plaintiffs had standing to sue in part because they had established that they had a reasonable fear of injury from the surveillance and had incurred costs to avoid it.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court wrote that the new regulations had “put the plaintiffs in a lose-lose situation: either they can continue to communicate sensitive information electronically and bear a substantial risk of being monitored under a statute they allege to be unconstitutional, or they can incur financial and professional costs to avoid being monitored.”
The appeals court said its ruling “does not mean that their challenge will succeed; it means only that the plaintiffs are entitled to have a federal court reach the merits of their challenge.”
A spokeswoman for government lawyers who argued the case said they had no comment.
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the ruling a “watershed opinion.”
“For too long, the government has used unwarranted secrecy to shield intrusive surveillance programs from constitutional scrutiny,” he said. “The government’s surveillance practices should not be immune from judicial review, and this decision ensures that they won’t be.”
The plaintiffs had argued that the new procedures made it possible for the U.S. to seek to review all telephone and email communications to and from countries of foreign policy interest, including communications made to and from U.S. citizens and residents.
“This is a statute that allows the government to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications. As far as Americans’ international communications are concerned, the statute eliminates the probable cause and warrant requirements altogether,” Jaffer said.
The appeals court noted plaintiffs’ declarations citing individuals whose work might be affected by the eavesdropping procedures. Those individuals included a lawyer for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed who regularly communicates with Mohammed’s family members, experts and investigators around the world.
BUFFALO, N.Y., March 21 (UPI) — A New York state judge has barred appliance parts firm 1st Source Servall from soliciting business from a rival firm’s client list due to corporate espionage.
State Supreme Court Justice John Michalek, in a 21-page injunction said, “Unrebutted evidence now demonstrates” two former Marcone Supply company employees “intentionally took and/or received” customer information from their former employer, The Buffalo News reported Monday.
With the list in hand, Marcone employee Mark Creighton resigned from his job April 20, 2010, and “within six days became Servall’s vice president of sales for the Northeast Region,” the judge wrote.
In addition, the judge said Creighton admitted he destroyed memory sticks and a computer hard drive that contained information about 3,300 Marcone customers.
The judge’s injunction is limited to the top 640 clients on Marcone’s customer list. Marcone attorney James Donathen called the situation “serious” and “a classic case of corporate espionage.”
Marcone lost $12 million worth of business in 2010 because of the theft, the company said.
“I think the main reason they’re suing Servall is that Servall is No. 2, and a lot of customers are better off with Servall,” Servall attorney B. Kevin Burke Jr. said.
“Customers are better served if there is competition,” Burke said.
A lawsuit challenging the government’s right to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants under the Patriot Act was re-instated by an appeals court Monday.
Libertarians cheered the decision, which will allow Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups to continue questioning the government’s ability to listen in on phone calls and to monitor emails.
An earlier ruling by District Judge John Koeltl dismissed the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs didn’t show they would be the subject of surveillance.
The American Civil Liberties Union and others argued they should be allowed to sue because they feared that “their communications will be monitored, and thus force them to undertake costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of international communication necessary to carrying out their jobs.”
The Second Circuit Appeals court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding they have “a reasonable fear of injury.”
The three-judge panel’s 63-page decision does not comment on the merits of the lawsuit.
“The government’s surveillance practices should not be immune from judicial review, and this decision ensures that they won’t be,” ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer said.
“The law we’ve challenged permits the government to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications, and it has none of the safeguards that the Constitution requires.
“Now that the appeals court has recognized that our clients have the right to challenge the law, we look forward to pressing that challenge in the trial court.”
