Intellectual property: Don't serve it up on a platter

However, most companies do not take this problem very seriously. This is shown by a recent study conducted by Deutsche Messe Interactive on behalf of Brainloop. According to the survey, only 52% of the respondents believe that their company's existence is at risk from the theft of intellectual property. 142 decision-makers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were asked how they assess the protection of their corporate data. The participating companies are major players in the economy that, without appropriate security measures, offer an attractive target for attacks. Around 56% of the companies employ between 1001 and 10,000 people. Another 30% have more than 10,000 employees.

Plagiarism caused by security leaks ruins countless years of work and endangers company livelihoods. Nevertheless, many companies oversleep the topic of security. Strong encryption of information is essential, especially when working with internal and external project members. The industrial sectors of electronics and electrical engineering as well as mechanical and plant engineering show a comparatively high level of understanding for this. In each of these industries, more than 60% responded that the loss of intellectual property could threaten the company's existence. This is in stark contrast to the energy sector, where only around one third of participants see it this way.

Across all industries, 94% of respondents say they generally attach high importance to know-how protection (high priority 33%, very high importance 61%). All the more surprising is the fact that companies nevertheless do not sufficiently secure their information. According to the survey, only 63% of the respondents have encrypted data transmission inside and outside the company.

In addition, not all corporate processes are perceived as equally sensitive. For example, the decision-makers surveyed rated the material on patents and development partnerships as worthy of protection at 66% and 57% respectively. However, only 38% of the respondents believe that supplier communications also contain sensitive data. Yet it is precisely in this area that much valuable information leaves the company.

When evaluating the results, some internal correlations and causes for security problems become clearer. For example, around 61% of the respondents answered that the IT departments are responsible for protecting confidential information. By contrast, only 4% of the decision-makers surveyed see their own employees as being responsible. At the same time, 56% of the companies state that sensitive data is stored centrally on the company server. As a rule, however, every employee has access to this data.

"The survey vividly shows the basic problem in many companies: Employees and decision-makers are not sufficiently involved in security concepts," says Thomas Deutschmann, CEO of Brainloop. "Whether their company has already suffered damage in the past, only 60% of the respondents were able to state. Also, 62% of the decision makers have no idea whether their company plans to use special software to protect confidential information."