Economic Espionage and Trade Secret Theft

American companies are renowned as being the most innovative in the world. Companies of every size and in every industry, from manufacturing to software to biotechnology to aerospace, own large portfolios of legally protected trade secrets they have developed and innovated. The theft of these secrets can lead to devastating consequences. The risk of trade secret theft has been around as long as there have been secrets to protect, but the methods used to steal trade secrets have become more sophisticated. Today, a criminal can steal all of the trade secrets a company owns from thousands of miles away. Many cyber attacks are the work of foreign governments. China and other nations now routinely steal from American businesses and give the secrets to their own companies. Companies now must confront the reality that they are being attacked on a daily basis by cyber criminals who are determined to steal their intellectual property. Attorney General Holder has observed, there are two kinds of companies in America: Those that have been hacked and those that do not know that they have been hacked.