With the demise of the Soviet Union, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the moves towards democratizing those countries, and the unification of Germany, there has been significant re-targeting of foreign intelligence service assets to focus on economic intelligence. Likewise, there has been a significant expansion in the number of firms engaged in business intelligence and competitive analysis using ethical and legal methods as well as some resorting to unethical and even illegal approaches for collecting information. This paper examines the threat to corporate secrets and highlights the legal definition of a trade secret and associated key elements as an initial step toward identifying critical information. It suggests an Operations Security (OPSEC) like process for determining a corporation's counter-competitor posture and the required measures for protecting its trade secrets and other proprietary information. The paper concludes with an outline of the components necessary for establishing an effective and comprehensive corporate information protection program.

The Threat

There is a threat focussed on exploiting corporate secrets. It ranges from the simple to the highly sophisticated. This threat may be looking to capitalize on a corporation's ideas. their technology, and their understanding of the market the purpose: to improve their own bottom line. The threat may include foreign governments and their intelligence services. The threat also may include other corporations competitors, foreign and domestic who want to get ahead legally or, for some of them, to get ahead not so legally. It may also include radical and anti-business activist groups.

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