Economic espionage is big business.
Your business is the target.
Foreign nation-state adversaries are stealing American intellectual property (IP), covertly undermining U.S. critical technology, exploiting human talent, and spending billions to ensure that they win every technology race that matters. These same forces are exploiting innovations in the digital space to wage malign information campaigns, targeting our democratic institutions and values, and sowing discord to achieve their own foreign policy goals.
Every year, 1 in 5 American companies report a theft of IP by China, collectively resulting in more than a
half-trillion dollars in annual losses.
The Challenge
America’s strategic adversaries—including China, Russia, and Iran—engage in aggressive, well-funded, coordinated operations to steal American technology. Their specific techniques include state-sponsored hacking, predatory finance to gain access to IP, corruption of U.S. supply chains, use of U.S. research funds, patent theft, and old-fashioned human economic espionage. Many foreign governments do not distinguish between national security and private sector economic gain. Acquiring your technology is an avowed national priority for China, Russia, and others.
They do so through three principal mechanisms:
1
Predatory Finance
Malign actors gain access to IP, technology, and your other confidential company information through financial arrangements such as limited partnership agreements, joint ventures, and other rights gained through investments. Adversarial actors often hide their foreign connections behind cutouts, trusts, shells, and other vehicles. It is important that you do deep diligence on all your investors, including limited and other secondary partners.
2
Supply Chain Infiltration
Russia and China have both gained access to confidential U.S. business and national security information through the use of obfuscated infiltration of organizations’ supply chains. Outwardly American suppliers have both wittingly and unwittingly installed Russian and Chinese hardware and software in your communication and data storage devices, as well as in your products. These implants “phone home” your confidential information without your knowledge.
3
Use of Insiders
Sometimes the most effective methods are the oldest. Foreign adversaries have recruited your employees or placed their agents in your companies. Recent media reports, for example, show how both Saudi Arabia and China placed their agents inside Twitter.
These attacks affect both private industries and public institutions
Private Industry
Every year, 1 in 5 American companies report a theft of IP by China, collectively resulting in more than a half-trillion dollars in annual losses. And this number underestimates the true scale of the damage, as many intrusions are undetected and unreported. Affected technologies include AI/ML, robotics, 5G, biosynthetics, and extend to commercial microelectronics and pipeline construction. No industry is immune. This activity harms individual companies and their workers, degrades America’s competitive edge in the global economy, and reduces our national security by giving our opponents shortcuts to the latest technical and scientific innovations.
Public Institutions
These same adversaries direct an unrelenting stream of disinformation at the U.S., other democratic states and their institutions. This disinformation is designed to increase social tensions, stoke fear, divide allies, and advance anti-democratic foreign policy goals. As an example, Russia deploys disinformation across different continents for varied objectives. Russian interference in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election aimed to undermine citizens’ access to quality information and amplify mistrust in the electoral process.
Both activities—disinformation and attacks to our technology sector—compromise our democracy and global standing. As an open democracy with the world’s largest, market-driven economy, the United States is uniquely vulnerable to these threats.
The Mission
2430 Group is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit institution. We bridge the gap between private industry and the U.S. Government by helping to defend American citizens, companies, universities, and other institutions against hidden and illegal foreign interference and state-sponsored theft of cutting-edge breakthroughs in science and technology. 2430 Group comprises experts from the private sector, the intelligence community, the military, law enforcement, and academia, all with decades of experience in identifying and mitigating threats to our national security.
Our goals
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That every American institution will be aware of adversarial methods for eroding trust in our democracy and exploiting our technological acumen. American firms will be able to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, companies, funding, and people.
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That the USG will devote resources to this issue on a scale commensurate with the problem, including by using civil and criminal litigation against foreign attackers and their American fronts and collaborators.
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That U.S. citizens and companies will be deterred from cooperating with foreign malign actors that aim to manipulate public discourse and undermine R&D for their own foreign policy objectives.
How we can help
Neither the private sector nor the government is set up to do what 2430 Group does. The job of private companies is to develop and deliver high quality products and services to their customers. Private companies cannot be expected to develop and maintain the expertise and skills to root out IP theft and foreign influence. Government has the expertise and the mission, but lacks the authorities and resources necessary to pursue American companies that front for our adversaries. 2430 Group has those authorities, and with your help will have those resources.
Educate
We educate, train, and equip American institutions to recognize and defend against foreign interference, and threats to their IP, technology, and capital investment.
Research
We develop tools and techniques to uncover both actual thefts, as well as the evolving techniques, people, and institutions malign actors rely on to acquire your tech.
Catalog
We provide access to our growing catalog of previous thefts, including details about our adversaries’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) using open-source intelligence (OSINT) and commercially-sourced intelligence (CSINT) tools.
We value your support
As a 501(C) nonprofit institution, we depend entirely on donations to continue doing this important work. Your contribution will directly support these three areas:
People
2430 Group depends on the work of data scientists and engineers, researchers, linguists, software developers, intelligence experts, and trainers to find, compile, organize, and disseminate the information American companies can use to defend themselves from technology theft.
Data
Much of the data 2430 Group relies on is free and comes from companies, individuals, and the web free of charge. However, 2430 also depends on and must pay for commercial data.
Software and scaling tools
Organizing and scaling data requires software, some of which 2430 Group develops in-house, and some of which 2430 Group must purchase.
Contact Us
- To learn more about threats to your organization and IP;
- To contribute or get involved;
- To ask questions or offer suggestions.