Take-away quote:
“What we’re seeing is that foreign nations and their intelligence services are understanding more than ever before that it’s cheaper to steal our technology than to use their budget resources in this time of economic crisis to develop it themselves.”—Frank Figliuzzi, chief of FBI’s counterintelligence division
Foreign spying against U.S. companies on the rise, FBI says
(Los Angeles Times) Driven in part by the global financial crisis, foreign intelligence services, corporations and computer hackers have stepped up efforts to steal technology and trade secrets from American companies, the FBI’s top spy hunter told Congress on Thursday.
A related threat — illegal sales of U.S. technology — was highlighted when a major military contractor, United Technologies Corp., and two subsidiary units agreed in federal court to pay a $75-million fine for illegally selling embargoed software and components to China that the country used to build a sophisticated attack helicopter called the Z-10. . . .
. . . . Foreign efforts to obtain U.S. technology in violation of U.S. law are not new, but the cost is rising and is a threat to national security, said C. Frank Figliuzzi, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division. He said U.S. companies have suffered more than $13 billion in losses from economic espionage in the current fiscal year.
“What we’re seeing is that foreign nations and their intelligence services are understanding more than ever before that it’s cheaper to steal our technology than to use their budget resources in this time of economic crisis to develop it themselves,” Figliuzzi told the intelligence subcommittee of the House homeland security committee.
“The theft of U.S. proprietary technology, including controlled dual-use technology and military-grade equipment, from unwitting U.S. companies is one of the most dangerous threats to national security,” said John P. Woods, assistant director of national security investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Computer hackers operating from abroad use increasingly sophisticated attacks to infiltrate corporate networks and siphon out intellectual property secrets. But so-called insiders — employees or contractors who steal documents, or download files onto portable media — are responsible for a growing percentage of cases.
In February, for example, a federal grand jury indicted a San Francisco couple and others suspected of conspiring to steal trade secrets from DuPont for a Chinese state-owned company. Figliuzzi said it was the first U.S. criminal case alleging state-sponsored economic spying. . . . .
