Organizations in the financial services and public administration sectors are the primary targets of sophisticated attacks aimed at stealing intellectual property, with attacks involving both external and internal agents and lasting for months or years, according to a new report.
A Verizon report [PDF] reports just 101 incidents of intellectual property theft - around 12 percent of the total data breach incidents it documented - during 2011, but attacks that stole intellectual property were both longer-lasting and more complex than other data breach incidents.
Attackers commonly relied on both external agents and insiders to carry out the attacks. Professional criminal gangs, hacktivist groups, competitors and state-sponsored actors were "identified or suspected" in many of the IP theft crimes.
