They are young, hot and successful. But the new technology companies are also increasingly vulnerable to cyber espionage, displays Ny Teknik granskning.- When our patent became public, we saw immediately that there were lots of hacking attempt, says the CEO of a development company.
the new technology has spoken with dozens of technology companies – many of them have previously been on our 33 list, as well as with police officers, information security, digital forensics and representatives of startuper. Several of the companies say that they are subjected to attempts at hacking.
Often begins cyber espionage shortly after the company unveiled an innovation, a patent or research.
– As soon as the company appears on ” radar “, it will be an interesting target for others, says Jonas Persson, digital forensics on iT security Bitsec and former head of the police’s criminal intelligence service in Värmland.
Chris Fåhraeus, founder of Flatfrog, which develops touch-sensitive computer screens, and other start-up companies, also stated that the patent-intensive businesses often suffer. One of his company subjected at one point to what he describes as “a systematic attack”.
– Cyber espionage is a reality. The companies must become more efficient and protect its patents, he said.
The founder of a small materials technology company, who wants to remain anonymous, explains how the company got in trouble with the computers last year.
– The calculations went at half-time, it became more and more wrong. Files disappeared, even from the phones.
The company, which is aiming for the defense market, got help in hacking discovered by a police authority. There would neither confirm nor deny the incident. The company has since seen it as necessary to have a computer that is not connected to the Internet. It has consequences.
– We can not send CAD files to an engineer who wants to work from home and can not do all things that are good with the network, said company representatives.
actual business concept is dependent on the internet, it is not possible to secure operations by shutting down the connection.
Technology company Appland provides a platform for organizations that want to open their own app stores. According to the company’s chief technology officer and co-founder Henrik Lewander is constantly exposed to the intrusion attempt.
– It scans ports and trying to get through the firewall, but no one has managed to get through.
CEO a development in process technology says that nowadays “must be nojig and conspiratorial.”
– systematic industrial espionage is something that increases. I may be horrified sometimes. There are companies in Sweden which is like a cake dish, it’s just for the taking.
The security Jonas Persson at Bitsec says that it may be difficult to notice that someone is spying on one’s computer. One approach is for example on the small pieces of information collected during a few years.
Raoul Stubbe, business coach at STING Kista working with new companies in IT, Internet / Media, Health and climate technology / smart energy solutions, can not give a clear example of cyber espionage occurred in them.
– But are they really skilled, you notice nothing. In one case, got a competitor abroad out with a very similar product, and then we became suspicious, but we have no evidence that there has been a patent theft.
Many of those New Technology talked about the attempted attack against them has chosen not to notify the police incursions. Getting goes to the police certified by the Inspector Anders Ahlqvist, the National IT crime group.
– Many people do not want to talk about what they have been subjected to various reasons. But we would like to see more reporting violations so that we can investigate them.
Tell us! Has your company suffered attempts at hacking or cyber espionage? Send your story to us via www.techleaks.se.
Facts technology companies talk about how they suffered
the CEO of the company with a patent on the new process technology :
“When our patent became public, we were right amounts of intrusion attempts. By tracking the IP addresses of those who tried to sniff out we could see that they came from including dozens of international big business. We also discovered that different research institutions from different parts of the world lay ‘sniffed’.
If someone managed to get into the IT systems know we are not sure. But in that case, they have only come across emails and maybe a little market because the sensitive information is only in our internal network.
If it is stolen had someone with large financial and human resources able to quickly understand what and how we are doing and then take the resulting patents and thus deprived us on the next stage of development. “
Founder of a small materials companies:
“we had been running for two years and applied for a patent when we suddenly discovered that the computers behaved strangely. Calculations went on half time, it became more and more wrong. Files disappeared – even on mobile phones.
Since we are aiming for the defense market, we have been helped, and one could say that we had extensive intrusion, and I was told that I was super naive.
Luckily, we had really no crucial information on the computers, but the first thing we did was to have a computer that is completely isolated from the network for sensitive information.
Now we have introduced and are introducing a number safety systems and rules for encryption, physical protection and security of employees. There will be a lot of extra costs and extra work. “
Patrik Lindergren, president of ChargeStorm, which makes smart charger for electric vehicles:
” We see that people are trying to carry out attacks all the time, but none have succeeded. This involves both the login attempts via ports in the firewall but also about ‘brute force programs’ who try to use different passwords to get in.Vi looks as clean login attempts against remote nodes, ie attacks against IP numbers that go to our charging stations . Because they are connected to our central network, trying to get into the road.We tend to track the IP address behind the attacker; many calls are coming from abroad, such as South Africa, and notify the intrusion attempt to the ISP. Nowadays you have to think about cyber security in everything to implement digitally. “
Facts Sapo works with reverse targeting
security Service has a database of 500 of the most important activities of national security protecting. Among other things, using the method of “reverse targeting”.
We know what intelligence officers is, which countries are spying against Sweden, but it is often difficult to access them. However, if we ask ourselves where the most critical information is available along with the company’s safety and management’s good memory, then we can see the attack coming, said Anders Thornberg of business representatives last year on the Nasdaq seminar.
But small technology companies are likely to have difficulty rangeb there.
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