During a single week in January, three avoidable security breaches showed what role people play in facing catastrophic security breaches. The board of a major French bank was debating whether to fire its chief executive whose rogue trader cost the enterprise $7.2 billion and set up the business for a hostile takeover (Reuters’s January 30 article, Soc Gen board ponders chairman fate, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080130/bs_nm/socgen_dc). Lesson: The time for executive involvement in security is before the catastrophic loss, not after.
Across the Atlantic, in Texas, a personal catastrophe. A Greek Orthodox bishop’s car was burglarized while he was out to dinner. The victim, himself a former US Marine, lamented the irreplaceable losses not only of a jeweled ceremonial crown valued up to $10,000 but also of a black bag given to him by the widow of a fellow Marine. The bishop felt lost without the bag, a sentimental attachment of 22 years. (Dallas/Ft. Worth NBC News of January 27, http://www.nbc5i.com/newsbycounty/15149212/detail.html) Lesson: If something is invaluable, treat it that way – all the time.
Finally, a security success story emerges, relatively unheralded. An alert Swedish bank employee managed to thwart a Mission Impossible-style digital bank heist in progress. Thieves had managed to place a device or devices under the employee’s desk. At the appointed hour, when the thieves were poised to seize control of a computer and electronically transfer millions out of the bank, the employee recognized something amiss and literally pulled the plug on a device. This action stopped the transaction at the last second. (AP article of January 30, Swedish bank stops digital theft, http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jAz3WqAdnaAcvzcllNpnJbyArdvgD8UG7LIG2) Lesson: There is no more effective security measure than an alert employee who acts on suspicions.
Defending assets is quiet work, taking more diligence than dash. Only security failures make headlines.
– Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.