Industrial spies thwarted

Industrial spies are concentrating on the high technology fields where Korea is the leader, according to a report by the National Intelligence Service. An official at the agency said yesterday it had thwarted 41 industrial spy cases just before the information was to have been sent to foreign companies since 1998. Seventy-five percent of the cases were in the information technology industry ― cellular phones, liquid crystal display screens and plasma display panels. He said the value of the technology was estimated by the companies involved at 31 trillion won ($26.7 billion). The official also said most of the industrial spies in the 41 cases were current or former employees of the technology owner. The cases included 14 Chinese companies and eight from Taiwan. “Employees consider the technology they developed as their property and not the company’s,” he said, adding that companies should properly compensate employees who develop technology to reduce the temptation to earn more from it by selling it under the table. A semiconductor manufacturer developed a technology at a cost of 407 billion won, but a researcher took some core documents concerning the technology to his home. The scale of industrial spying cases has grown ten-fold since 1998, the intelligence official said. A local branch of a foreign company stole technology from Korean electronics and mechanical companies after signing technical consulting contracts with them, he said, and some joint-venture proposals are disguised attempts to steal technology. According to a recent survey by the Korea Industrial Technology Association of 394 Korean companies with research facilities, 15 percent have suffered technology losses. But less than a third of small and medium firms enforce security regulations, while 80 percent of the large firms survey have written rules for safeguarding technology. The National Intelligence Service has published a booklet on how to sniff out industrial spies in order to educate Korean companies. It also planned, it said, to expand a security education program that it now conducts for large companies to include smaller firms and start-ups with advanced technology. Companies can report espionage through the service’s Web site, www.nis.go.kr, or by calling 111. by Choi Ji-young