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Electronic theft by foreign and industrial spies and disgruntled employees is costing U.S. companies billions and eroding their international competitive advantage .
That was the message delivered by government and private security experts at an all-day conference on corporate electronic espionage .
`` Hostile and even friendly nations routinely steal information from U.S. companies and share it with their own companies , '' said Noel D. Matchett , a former staffer at the federal National Security Agency and now president of Information Security Inc. , Silver Spring , Md .
It `` may well be '' that theft of business data is `` as serious a strategic threat to national security '' as it is a threat to the survival of victimized U.S. firms , said Michelle Van Cleave , the White House 's assistant director for National Security Affairs .
                       
The conference was jointly sponsored by the New York Institute of Technology School of Management and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association , a joint industry-government trade group .
Any secret can be pirated , the experts said , if it is transmitted over the air .
Even rank amateurs can do it if they spend a few thousand dollars for a commercially available microwave receiver with amplifier and a VCR recorder .
They need only position themselves near a company 's satellite dish and wait .
`` You can have a dozen competitors stealing your secrets at the same time , '' Mr. Matchett said , adding : `` It 's a pretty good bet they wo n't get caught . ''
The only way to catch an electronic thief , he said , is to set him up with erroneous information .
             
Even though electronic espionage may cost U.S. firms billions of dollars a year , most are n't yet taking precautions , the experts said .
By contrast , European firms will spend $ 150 million this year on electronic security , and are expected to spend $ 1 billion by 1992 .
Already many foreign firms , especially banks , have their own cryptographers , conference speakers reported .
Still , encrypting corporate communications is only a partial remedy .
                       
One expert , whose job is so politically sensitive that he spoke on condition that he would n't be named or quoted , said the expected influx of East European refugees over the next few years will greatly increase the chances of computer-maintenance workers , for example , doubling as foreign spies .
Moreover , he said , technology now exists for stealing corporate secrets after they 've been `` erased '' from a computer 's memory .
He said that Oliver North of Iran-Contra notoriety thought he had erased his computer but that the information was later retrieved for congressional committees to read .
No personal computer , not even the one on a chief executive 's desk , is safe , this speaker noted .
W. Mark Goode , president of Micronyx Inc. , a Richardson , Texas , firm that makes computer-security products , provided a new definition for Mikhail Gorbachev 's campaign for greater openness , known commonly as glasnost .
Under Mr. Gorbachev , Mr. Goode said , the Soviets are openly stealing Western corporate communications .
He cited the case of a Swiss oil trader who recently put out bids via telex for an oil tanker to pick up a cargo of crude in the Middle East .
Among the responses the Swiss trader got was one from the Soviet national shipping company , which had n't been invited to submit a bid .
The Soviets ' eavesdropping paid off , however , because they got the contract .