Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence
The current competitive environment is, in all branches of the economy, in a continuous emphasis, with companies investing more and more sums in market research in the fields of activity,competitors, products and services, the business environment, trends, the final goal being the establishment of medium and long-term strategies.
The process itself bears the generic name of competitive intelligence. The role of this process is to provide data and information for building competitive strategies that ultimately create advantages in a highly competitive business environment.
Competitive intelligence programs are used by companies of all sizes, in all fields of activity, in order to ensure significant competitive advantages compared to organizations that do not use these types of programs.
The collection of information together with the process of their analysis, as components of the competitive intelligence process, can help a company to develop strategies with a high degree of efficiency or to identify vulnerable points in competitors' strategies.
Corporate espionage
In practice, however, more and more often, competitive intelligence programs are complemented with activities of
Corporate economic espionage refers to obtaining trade secrets, by evasion from companies or entities, for the benefit of another company or entity.
As corporate intelligence-gathering techniques have developed and become sophisticated, economic corporate espionage (which can also be called industrial or cyber) has become an extremely serious problem for many companies today, with the stakes being substantial. The information targeted by corporate espionage is that information the disclosure of which may harm the entity from which it was obtained.
Corporate espionage aims, on a case-by-case basis, to obtain a varied range of data, but usually aims at:
Products
– Recipes, specific technologies, own industrial brands, registered brands, know-how
Employees
– Recipes, specific technologies, own industrial brands, registered brands, know-how
– Employee personal documents, especially for those with specialized, high technical training degrees, including any personal data relating to employees
Business
– Customers, suppliers, prices, pricing strategies, market strategies, business intelligence
– Advanced prices at negotiations, auctions
– Expected strategies in acquisitions and mergers
– Complete financial statements, percentages/cash-flow amounts/provisions, investments for expansion, investments in research
Risks and vulnerabilities generated by corporate economic espionage:
– Copying or counterfeiting recipes, technologies, products, ways of working, projects or strategies
– Recruiting, taking over or corrupting key employees or specialists
- Taking over some customers, suppliers, contracts, markets
– Hostile takeovers
- Compromise of some projects, businesses, associations
– Triggering negative campaigns in the media that can affect the company's image
– False or exaggerated presentation, including in the mass media, of situations that may attract actions by law enforcement institutions

TEMPEST Protection
Information security studies are increasingly important in today's context of increasing cyber security risks. In this context, TEMPEST protection is a major concern for organizations handling classified or confidential information.
Electromagnetic emissions generated by electronic devices are influenced by many variables such as voltage, current, input signal, data transfer rate, and others. These variables can be measured with special equipment and can be used to determine the information stored or transmitted through the devices. Thus, a person with special equipment and advanced knowledge can intercept and decipher confidential information.
To reduce TEMPEST vulnerabilities, organizations must take steps to protect electronic equipment from eavesdropping. These measures include the use of equipment that is designed to block electromagnetic emissions and to protect the equipment from interception.
Threats
Video surveillance

Data exfiltration

Audio surveillance
