COMPANIES BEWARE ....... BUGGERS ARE EAVESDROPPING!

October 06 2006 at 06:43AM

The microphone is no bigger than the head of a match; the high-definition camera is smaller than a R2 coin.
No, these are not gadgets you would find in a James Bond movie, but real hi-tech devices that spies are using to bug the boardrooms of major corporations.
GriffithsReid, a security consultancy firm, said on Thursday that incidents of corporate espionage had risen dramatically in South Africa as companies, wanting to get an edge on their competitors, increasingly turned to private investigators to spy on them.
Tim Jackson, an investigator at GriffithsReid, has discovered listening devices and hi-tech spying equipment in the offices and boardrooms of several top companies

Many of the incidents of corporate espionage went unreported, Jackson said, as companies feared that their reputations would be adversely affected if these were made public.
Jackson said this was why there were no precise statistics on how widespread the problem was.
"It is virtually impossible to put an exact figure on it because, a lot of the time, people do not even know they are being bugged.
"In the United States, corporate espionage costs businesses billions of dollars, and I would say that here it would run into many millions (of rands)," he said.
Willie Jacobsz, spokesperson for Gold Fields, said the mining company was aware of corporate espionage and conducted regular sweeps for bugging devices.
"We have certainly not experienced anything like that, not to our knowledge at least. However, we do ensure that our confidential matters remain confidential.
"We have never discovered bugging devices, but we do sweeps every now and then," he said.
Out of every 20 companies that GriffithsReid sweep for bugging devices, at least one is found. They are called out at least twice a week by businesses who fear they have been infiltrated.
A few months ago, a publicly listed company, which GriffithsReid would not name because of contractual obligations, were concerned that sensitive information had been leaking to their major competitor.
They did not know how, because the information being leaked was privy only to board members.
"When I got to the company we began sweeping for bugs. We went to the boardroom, checked a ceiling panel and found that a cellphone had been installed.
"Whenever these guys went into a meeting, the entire proceedings were being relayed to the spy.
"When we showed the directors the device they were not very happy about it," Jackson said.
Corporate spies usually breached a company's security by first staking out the building and then pretending to be cleaning staff.
Several companies contacted by The Star on Thursday denied that corporate espionage was or had occurred in their organisation.
Ilja Graulich of DRD Gold said: "We certainly don't have any experience of this."

• This article was originally published on page 3 of The Star on October 06, 2006