IP cloaking becoming a business necessity

Identity Theft
Phishing
Risk Management

By Anne Saita, News Director

09 Dec 2005 | SearchSecurity.com

SAN DIEGO -- So much for trade secrets. Not long ago, a company unwittingly tipped its hand when planning to buy another business.

How? Lawyers, investment bankers, consultants, executives and directors suddenly hammered the investor relations section of the targeted firm's Web site. Their IP addresses gave them away.

Realizing it was going to be bought, the targeted firm called another company and shared its rival's still-secret plans, thus launching a bidding war. In the end, the first company won the battle, but it paid $15 million more than it should. A more covert search for information may have prevented that.

"This seems to be a very common scenario," explained Lance Cottrell, founder, president and chief scientist for San Diego-based Anonymizer Inc., at Thursday's Usenix Large Installation System Administration conference. Though his 11-year-old company is best known for consumer privacy, enterprise interest has surged regarding cloaking online activity used to gather intelligence and prevent information leakage.

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