Every year the digital industry association Bitkom asks German companies about data theft, espionage and sabotage. In its 2025 study, 87 percent of 1,002 companies said they had been affected. Bitkom put the total damage to the German economy at about 289.2 billion euros for the year. Of the companies from which data had been stolen, 29 percent lost intellectual property such as patents and research and development information.