State-Sponsored Espionage: Everybody loses

In a world where citizens depend on the government to survive everyday life, state-sponsored espionage, directly and indirectly, causes harm to citizens with little to no repercussions to the state-sponsored attackers. According to UtilityDive.com, "DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm in June told CNN that enemies of the United States have the capability to shut down the U.S. power grid, and 'there are very malign actors trying, even as we speak'" (Walton, 2021, para 1). It suggests that citizens suffer at the hands of state-sponsored espionage.

While it may be true that state-sponsored espionage has a broader impact than corporate espionage, corporate espionage drastically affects the market. Investopedia defines Corporate espionage as "stealing proprietary information, trade secrets, or intellectual property from a business and giving or selling it to another. The primary intent behind corporate espionage is to use the acquired information to gain a competitive advantage." It suggests that companies suffer tremendously when security is compromised. On May 29, 2022, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finalized its decision that Boeing exploited confidential trade secrets to secure an airport contract with the Airforce. Boeing was forced to pay AAI more than 2 million dollars for its misbehavior. It suggests that corporate espionage has potentially expensive financial consequences for corporations that are discovered and prosecuted (Brittain, 2022). While corporate espionage has the potential to cost corporations and customers millions of dollars in damage, corporate espionage is scoped to a target business with a limited database of customers. Alternately, State-sponsored espionage has a more significant impact and is far more dangerous than corporate espionage. 

The IT Law Wiki extends the topic of espionage to include wide-scale, far-reaching, life-threatening state-sponsored espionage: "Some governments now have the operational and technical expertise for more aggressive and sophisticated cyber espionageLinks to an external site.. U.S. counterintelligenceLinks to an external site. efforts have uncovered an increasing number of such activities by foreign intelligenceLinks to an external site. services, including past and ongoing espionageLinks to an external site. operations directed against critical U.S. military and other government systems" (para. 3). This suggests that when a government steals sensitive information from another government, the safety of its citizens is compromised at a national level. There is little repercussion for government-sanctioned state-sponsored espionage activities that would otherwise be illegal for corporations. Governments disregard their own laws in the name of national security. According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, "We have identified Snake infrastructure in over 50 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, to include the United States and Russia itself. Although Snake uses infrastructure across all industries, its targeting is purposeful and tactical in nature. Globally, the FSB has used Snake to collect sensitive intelligence from high-priority targets, such as government networks, research facilities, and journalists" (CISA, 2023, para 2). While corporations suffer at the hands of corporate espionage, everyone suffers at the hands of state-sponsored espionage. Citizens without a voice fall victim to the effects of illegal government activity, while government contractors with no accountability walk away without consequences. While consequences are far and in between for state-sponsored hackers, government security teams are always on the watch striving to stop harmful attacks in their tracks. This year, a dangerous tool Russia created for cyber-espionage was irradicated: 'Snake was "the most sophisticated cyber-espionage tool designed and used by Center 16 of Russia's Federal Security Service for long-term intelligence collection on sensitive targets," the U.S. agency said.' (Eckel, 2023, para. 1). While state-sponsored espionage and corporate espionage will continue to remain an active threat to citizens, currently, the best form of containment requires security teams to continue to adapt to an ever-changing attack surface.

References:

Beattie, A. (2023, April 30). Corporate espionage: Fact and fiction. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0310/corporate-espionage-fact-and-fiction.aspx#:~:text=Corporate%20espionage%20is%20stealing%20proprietary,to%20gain%20a%20competitive%20advantage. 

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA. (2023, June 7). Hunting Russian intelligence "snake" malware: Cisa. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-129a 

Eckel, M. (2023, May 12). The Snake, the FBI, and Center 16: Why the takedown of a "most sophisticated cyber-espionage tool" is important. RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-fsb-malware-snake-takedown/32407612.html 

Person, & Brittain, B. (2022, February 14). U.S. appeals court says Boeing must face contractor's trade-secret claims. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/us-appeals-court-says-boeing-must-face-contractors-trade-secret-claims-2022-02-14/ 

The IT Law Wiki. (n.d.). State-sponsored espionage. https://itlaw.fandom.com/wiki/State-sponsored_espionage 

Walton, R. (2021, October 28). Sophisticated hackers could crash the US Power Grid, but money, not sabotage, is their focus. Utility Dive. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/sophisticated-hackers-could-crash-the-us-power-grid-but-money-not-sabotag/603764/ 

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