PERSONAL AND BUSINESS SECURITY RISK ANALYSIS

Personal and Business Security Risk Analysis

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The most commonly cited reasons for securing transmissions are the prevention of accidental security breaches, the prevention of purposeful breaches, meeting Privacy Act requirements and meeting customer expectations.

What is at Risk?

Information relates to those items of company knowledge that are valued within the organization; as a consequence they will also be of value to outside parties. The type of information and its value depend on the individual company, its strategy and its product or service. Typically those items of value will be proprietary intellectual property, marketing strategies, legal agreements, personnel records and customer details. The information will be stored and manipulated in many forms; increasingly this will be via electronic methods.

When evaluating your organization's information types, consider the answers to such questions as what information is important to the company; who else would want the information; and what are the consequences of losing sole ownership of the information?

Referring to the answers to the questions above, any company knowledge could be of value to a third party. For example, picture the scenario where the acquisition of a publicly listed company is taking place. Confidential information must be exchanged between the companies, their lawyers and sharebrokers involved. Outsiders must be prevented from learning about the intent to acquire, let alone the actual details.

Accidental disclosure of information is always a possibility. For example, a brief fax sent from the acquiring company's lawyer to the broker (with the executed non-disclosure agreement) will be sent using the auto-dial button on the fax machine. The broker is a regular recipient of faxes from the law firm — so are any number of other lawyers, brokers and clients. The wrong auto-dial button will guarantee the fax is sent to someone contacted regularly; the recipient could be a harmless third party who would ignore it, a grateful beneficiary of unexpected insider information, or even a competitor with an agenda of their own.

Purposeful breaches include both internal and external attempts. Disgruntled or ambitious employees are possible internal risks; unethical competitors and other business associates are external sources of risk.

Risk analysis is an exercise that will determine the security needs of an organization. There are logical steps to follow in assessing the risks associated with transmitting unprotected information. For further information on the procedures for conducting an internal assessment of your organization's needs, Contact 3 Dimensional Wireless.

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