Definition of industrial espionage
In its “Prophylax” brochure, the Federal Intelligence Service defines espionage as follows:
“Espionage refers to all actions whose purpose is to obtain protected or secret military, political, economic, scientific and technological information favourable to one state, company or person to the detriment of another country, company or person. The violation of industrial and trade secrets and illegal intelligence activities are mentioned in the Swiss Penal Code (...)”.
By contrast, the procurement of information from publicly available sources is not prohibited. However, it is important for companies to note that even such information can lead to industrial espionage.
How is industrial espionage carried out?
Swiss companies are particularly vulnerable to industrial espionage if they are market leaders in their area or if they possess particularly good know-how.
Certain countries specifically send agents to Switzerland, who conduct espionage here to gain possession of this knowledge. For companies, such spying campaigns are difficult to identify. You should therefore be particularly careful in the following situations.
- Visits from foreign delegations: Foreign delegations can often contain spies. Companies should therefore accompany foreign delegations at all times and forbid photographing while they are on the premises. Likewise, sensitive data and the research department should be deliberately protected and not presented.
- Joint venture: Such business cooperation can be abused for espionage purposes.
- External service providers, consultants or suppliers: Businesses must be careful when selecting external business partners, since there could be spies among them.
- Own staff: Businesses should scrutinize applications and hire only people who are trustworthy.
- Recruitment of former staff: Companies must be aware that employees take their internal know-how with them when leaving the company.
How quickly a company can be affected by industrial espionage, and how difficult it is to detect espionage, is shown in the following short film “Im Visier” (German only) from the Federal Intelligence Service (NDB).
Industrial espionage on business trips
It’s not just at work in Switzerland that industrial espionage can become a danger; it can also be encountered on business trips. These preventative measures help Swiss companies reduce the risk of espionage:
- Always protect travel notebooks with firewalls and antivirus software
- Only access the company network via an encrypted channel
- Avoid public hotspots and Wi-Fi or use VPN
- Do not conduct confidential discussions in busy locations (restaurant, bar, hotel rooms)
- Do not store sensitive documents in the hotel safe
- Do not take an address book containing all contacts with you; a travel mobile phone is recommended
- Only switch on your mobile phone after passing border control, otherwise you can be tracked via the SIM card
Industrial espionage at trade fairs
International trade fairs are a great way to showcase your own services and products to a specialist audience. But it’s not just potential customers who can be interested in your innovations: spies can as well. Swiss SMEs can reduce the risk of becoming victims of espionage at trade fairs by doing the following:
- Replace sensitive exhibits as trade fairs with dummies
- Protect the stand against theft (also during construction, dismantling and at night)
- Never leave the stand unsupervised
- Do not accept USB sticks as gifts (could contain malicious software)
- Beware of certain questioning techniques
- Always ask interested parties for a business card and have it checked promptly
- Final check when leaving the stand
General prevention
Espionage can happen anywhere and at any time, regardless of whether you are in Switzerland or abroad. It often takes advantage of a company’s weaknesses and exploits them. This makes it all the more important for staff to be well informed when it comes to espionage, and that companies protect their sensitive data. Companies have the following options for prevention:
- Train staff and define processes
- Install technical safety equipment
- Restrict access rights
- Use smartphones and other data carriers carefully
- Control what information gets published
- Encrypt emails
Further procedure in the case of suspicion
But what should a company do if there is a suspicion of espionage? It should get in touch immediately with the cantonal police, which has a cantonal intelligence service. The cantonal intelligence services work closely with the Federal Intelligence Service and are represented in all cantons of Switzerland.
