Economic Espionage Seminar

FBI Special Agent Shevlin gave a very informative and eye-opening seminar yesterday in Carbondale about economic espionage. In case you were not able to attend, you can read more about the topic in this "2008 Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage."

Understanding this topic will be integral to the continued expansion of university technology commercialization efforts.

Here's some additional information from this white paper by Xerox about the cost in billions of economic espionage.

What is the cost of economic espionage? Fortune 1000 companies reported losing proprietary information and intellectual property valued at between $53 and $59 billion dollars during the period beginning July 1, 2000 and ending June 30, 2001. This finding was based on a survey entitled Trends in Proprietary Information Loss, sponsored by the American Society of Industrial Security Foundation (ASIS), PricewaterhouseCoopers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III claims an even higher number—as much as $200 billion—is lost annually to economic espionage.

If you would like more information on this topic or if you want to talk to SA Shevlin about any behavior or activities you've observed that may be suspect, you can contact him at:

3423 Office Park Drive
Marion IL 62959
Tel: 618 997 6847