A new company lets companies make sure potential employees aren't spies
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Strider, a company making its public debut Tuesday, offers a detailed screening tool to prevent international infiltrators from stealing intellectual property.
Why it matters: Countries — particularly China — are believed to frequently try to improve their economic might by stealing intellectual property for their domestic firms to copy and sell.
- One major way to accomplish this is by sending people to take jobs at companies with attractive technology or throw fake conferences to recruit existing employees.
The big picture: Until now, there have been few methods to screen individual people for obfuscated ties to governments.
- Strider addresses this through massive databases of human entanglements with governments, ranging from military scholarships to shell groups founded by people interconnected with previously flagged individuals from a variety of governments.
- While Strider is announcing itself to the public today, its twin co-founders Eric and Greg Levesque have quietly been providing similar services to U.S. intelligence agencies and large firms in the past.
The state of play: While it might seem like screening for potential spies would drive a wedge between companies and international businesses, Strider thinks they provide the exact opposite service: the ability to confidently recruit from nations like China or Russia while minimizing the risk of being robbed.
- "The reality is that we live in a day and age where companies operate globally," Eric Levesque told Axios. "We assess the risk of espionage, to allow them to do it safely."
Go deeper: China's move on intellectual property theft
