The following is from Jim Pooley’s new book on trade secrets — Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage.
Bankrupt networking giant Nortel reveals that its key executives’ email passwords were stolen and the company’s network hacked for a decade.
Boeing, hiring away Lockheed employees who bring documents to their new employer, pays $615 million to avoid criminal prosecution, while two of its former managers are indicted.
Apple scrambles to recover a sample of its unreleased new model iPhone that was left by an employee in a bar – a year after the same thing happened in a different bar.
Starwood employees leave to join Hilton, taking with them ideas for a new kind of hotel.
And the owner of Thomas’ English Muffins goes to court to protect its “nooks and crannies” recipe from being used by a competitor.
What do these corporate crises all have in common? Trade secrets. They reflect the enormous value of – and threats to – the most important assets of modern business...
Reading my new book —
Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage — will give you a deeper understanding of how your business differentiates itself from the competition, and how it must work to keep its edge. As an executive or manager or small-business owner you will come away armed to protect and exploit your company’s advantages. As an individual you will have a greater appreciation for what intellectually belongs to you and how to use it to advance your career without being sued. And whatever your interest or line of work, you will have a much better understanding of how information has become the global currency of the 21st century.
Weiqiang Zhang, 50, a Chinese national living in Manhattan, Kansas, was convicted on three counts, including conspiracy to steal trade secrets and interstate transportation of stolen property, the department said in a statement.
There are now an estimated 120 countries involved in espionage, each trying to infiltrate military, political and economic targets all over the world...
Huawei is one of the major phone makers in China...
Government officials point out that trade secrets are worth $5 trillion to the U.S. economy, and losses can cost between $160 billion and $480 billion a year. Government data further points out that trade secrets comprise as much as 80 percent of the value of a company’s knowledge portfolio. 
The ex-contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been invited to Norway to receive an award for his work defending free speech, but his attorneys said he is worried that traveling there would allow the Norwegian government to extradite him to the U.S., where he is wanted on charges of espionage.
“Corporate espionage, terrorism and cyber attacks are ratcheting up the need for senior executives who understand all aspects of risk management and security,” says Jeremy King, president of Benchmark Executive Search, a provider of technology executive search services.
Authors: 
One trade secret can lead to many products. As a unique form of intellectual property, trade secrets can be vital not only to a company and its employees, but also to other jobs, investments, an industry, the economy and, depending on the trade secrets, even national security.
