It's a Secret
So keep it that way--protect your proprietary information.
Thanks to technology, information theft is a growth industry
these days—and companies are losing money. A survey jointly
conducted by the American Society for Industrial Security and
Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, found that proprietary information theft
cost Fortune 1,000 companies more than $45 billion in 1999.
Even if you're not a major corporation, you still have
proprietary information to protect, and smaller companies often
have a tougher job protecting themselves than larger corporations
with dedicated security staffs. According to Bill Boni, a former director at
Pricewaterhouse-Coopers' investigation group in Los Angeles and
co-author of the survey, "Even though legal safeguards do
exist for information theft, they're after the fact, so if you
don't have a large war chest to spend on attorney's fees,
safeguarding your information is the best thing to do."
What are information thieves looking for? Concepts or sources of
innovation that give you a competitive edge. Here are two simple
ways to protect yourself: Do background and police checks on new
hires and use locks and keys to deter snoops and criminals. Says
Boni, "Your competitive information is your crown jewels, and
they should be locked up with only owner access."
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Ellen Paris is a Washington, DC, writer and former Forbes
magazine staff writer.