The Cybercriminal's Prize: Your Customer Data And Intellectual Property

Protecting customer data such as credit card information, log-in credentials, and other personally identifiable information (PII) is one of the top priorities for both security and risk (S&R) leaders and business leaders. Today, customer data protection is a source of growth and competitive differentiation for firms. Customer data breaches and privacy abuses lead to significant short-term costs from the immediate breach response itself as well as to long-term costs resulting from decreases in customer loyalty and retention and lost business opportunities. However, as the threat landscape continues to evolve, S&R leaders must adjust their risk management strategies to also counter the next frontier: intellectual property theft. Intellectual property, such as trade secrets, new product designs, financial information, and source code, can be just as damaging, if not worse, in some cases, because it can lead to a permanent loss of competitive advantage. This report examines how S&R pros, law enforcement, investors, and governments are responding to cybercrime today, and the dynamics behind cybercrime and types of intellectual property theft that occur. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.