Intellectual Property Theft

 This week, your internship assignment takes you to the Corporate Security office, headed by the Chief Security Officer (CSO). This office has recently completed an investigation into how a competitor may have obtained copies of the confidential architectural drawings and design plans for a new type of resort that the company had planned for a recently acquired island property. At least one competitor is known to have received copies of the company’s intellectual property through an economic development office within its country’s government. It is suspected that an Advanced Persistent Threat mechanism may have been used to exfiltrate information from Padgett-Beale‘s existing hotel property within that geopoliticall jurisdiction. Another competitor, also operating in that geographic area, contacted Padgett-Beale’s Corporate Security Office and disclosed that it had been sent URLs for web pages containing links to the resort plans by an unknown party. The other firm wanted to make it clear to Padgett-Beale that they did not condone nor participate in such illegal and unethical taking or receiving of another company’s intellectual property.