2.2.6 Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence Gathering
- Competitive intelligence gathering is the process of identifying, gathering, analyzing, verifying, and using information about your competitors from resources such as the Internet.
- Competitive intelligence is non-interfering and subtle in nature.
- Sources of Competitive Intelligence:
- Company websites and employment ads
- Search engines, Internet, and online DB
- Press releases and annual reports
- Trade journals, conferences, and newspaper
- Patent and trademarks
- Social engineering employees
- Product catalogues and retail outlets
- Analyst and regulatory reports
- Customer and vendor interviews
- Agents, distributors, and suppliers
Competitive Intelligence - When Did this Company Begin? How Did it Develop?
- When did it begin?
- How did it develop?
- Where is it located?
- Who leads it?
Competitive Intelligence - What Are the Company's Plans?
Competitive Intelligence - What Expert Opinions Say About the Company
Monitoring Website Traffic of Target Company
- Attacker uses website traffic monitoring tools such as web-stat, Alexa, Monitis, etc. to collect the information about target company:
- Total visitors
- Page views
- Bounce rate
- Live visitors map
- Site ranking
- Traffic monitoring helps to collect information about the target's customer base which help attackers to disguise as a customer and launch social engineering attacks on the target.
Tracking Online Reputation of the Target
- Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a process of monitoring a company's reputation on Internet and taking certain measures to minimize the negative search results/reviews and thereby improve its brand reputation.
- An attacker makes use of ORM tracking tools to:
- Track company's online reputation
- Collect company's search engine ranking information
- Obtain email notifications when a company is mentioned online
- Track conversations
- Obtain social news about the target organization