What is espionage?

In general one can define espionage as the activities organized to obtain secret or confidential information by covert means. Essentially this is about the theft of secrets. The common targets of espionage are: 

• sensitive political targets or data
• military information
• economic and commercial information
• business secrets
• personal or private secrets

Since the advent of the information age, cyber espionage and hacking have also been on the rise.

Hence countering the diverse and real threats relating to espionage and similar form interference is an important issue to evaluate. 

Are you yourself or your organization or company the target of some form of espionage, like for example corporate espionage? Are your business or other secrets being stolen? Is your data safe and secure? How will you counter this threat?  How you will detect this treat? What type of risk mitigation can you put in place?

What is Counter Espionage?

Counter-Espionage refers to the activities designed and conducted to prevent or thwart spying by an adversary or enemy. Activities in the fields counter espionage could be: 

• espionage
• undercover work – covert operations
• cloak-and-dagger activities
• surveillance
• reconnaissance – recon
• intelligence gathering
• eavesdropping
• cyberespionage
• infiltration – exfiltration of data
• counterintelligence
• ninjutsu
• bugging 
• wiretapping
• TSCM – bug sweeping

What is counter intelligence?

 Counterintelligence is the activity which tries to protect an agency or company it’s intelligence program from an opposition’s intelligence service (the enemy or adversary) . This can consists of: 

• gathering information to prevent espionage
• organize activities to prevent sabotage
• gather intelligence to prevent assassinations
• other intelligence activities