WASHINGTON—U.S. industry is in the crosshairs of foreign competitors and intelligence services seeking to surreptitiously obtain valuable knowledge and other intellectual property, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading think tank for science and technology policy. To counter this threat, ITIF recommends that the Trump administration establish a new public-private partnership to better coordinate commercial counterintelligence efforts with industry.
“Government counterintelligence outreach to the commercial sector is long overdue for reform. It relies too heavily on investigations following up after security breaches rather than proactively recognizing and responding to threat indicators,” said former FBI intelligence analyst Darren Tromblay, the report’s author. “By including private industry as a formal stakeholder, counterintelligence efforts can more effectively protect key U.S. intellectual and technology assets from being taken by adversaries and competitors. In turn, it will encourage companies to better incorporate counterintelligence concerns into their due-diligence process, which will make them more effective partners in thwarting foreign threats.”
ITIF recommends a new, more proactive approach to coordinating counterintelligence outreach between the government and commercial sector. The report calls on the Trump administration to establish an interagency hub, structured as a public-private partnership, to consolidate inconsistent and partly redundant counterintelligence outreach programs that are currently operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Defense.
This new entity should be charged with translating sensitive concerns identified by the U.S. intelligence community and other information collectors, into publicly distributable products and assistance. It should enlist the active participation of the private-sector entities at risk, since they are the first line of defense and best postured to identify anomalies. It also should assist industries trying to navigate technically legal but unscrupulous activities such as China’s mercantilist approach to doing business.
“Existing counterintelligence arrangements between government and industry have long been inconsistent and redundant—and even if they were running like a Swiss watch, the underlying premise itself is outdated,” said Tromblay. “The U.S. government is no longer the driver of innovation; it’s an adopter and adapter of knowledge and capabilities developed outside the public sector. So the tables have turned—there’s less financial incentive for the private sector to collaborate with government, and there’s more incentive for the government to collaborate with the private sector. Industry is in the cross-hairs of foreign actors, so it’s in a position not just to benefit from information the government can offer but also to provide important insights that government can act on. A public-private partnership akin to the National Endowment for Democracy could facilitate that.”
Read report the report at itif.org: HTML | PDF.
