Intellectual property theft involves robbing people or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions. It can include everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies, music, and software.

It is a growing threat especially with the rise of digital technologies and Internet file sharing networks. All told, intellectual property theft costs businesses billions of dollars a year and robs the nation of jobs and tax revenues.

Preventing intellectual property theft is a priority of the criminal investigative program. It specifically focuses on the theft of trade secrets and infringements on products that can impact consumers’ health and safety, such as counterfeit aircraft, car, and electronic parts. Key to the program’s success is linking the considerable resources and efforts of the private sector with law enforcement partners on local, state, federal, and international levels.

The Institute of Forensics and ICT Security organizes regular awareness training which can   significantly reduce the potential for success of intellectual property theft and attacks. Another idea is corporate peer groups, meetings of representatives of organizations in the same or similar verticals to discuss what they are seeing, what works, what does not work and share information security best practices and war stories. There is great value in measuring yourself to your immediate peers in terms of security statistics and practices.