Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Covert Competitive Intelligence

Yet another agreement on alleged covert competitive intelligence, this time, "WestJet Airlines says it’s sorry that members of its management team covertly accessed a confidential Air Canada website, and has agreed pay $15.5 million. In a joint news release from the two carriers, WestJet said that in 2003-2004, members of their management team "engaged in an extensive practice of covertly accessing a password protected proprietary employee website maintained by Air Canada to download detailed and commercially sensitive information without authorization or consent from Air Canada."

It's worth noting that Air Canada was actually aware of the security event, knew when it happened, and managed to trace it back to their competitors. Today's competitive intelligence does include unethical information gathering whether in-house, or "outsourced" practices, as DDoS for hire still make the headlines, compared to the many other still undetected insider leakages years ago. It's also impressive how Dumpster diving still remains a serious threat -- so make sure you shred your secrets!