We think of the White House as being impenetrable to danger – even though it may have been the target of one of the planes brought down on 9/11 – and of the Secret Service assigned to protect the president and first family as trustworthy beyond question. Clearly, in the wake of recent revelations, both theories couldn't be further from the truth.
In fact, the most recent (and perhaps most egregious) breach is but one of a series of mishaps and security failures by the Secret Service over the course of the Obama Administration. The White House intrusion resulted in the resignation of the Secret Service director, Julia Pierson.
As unnerving as these events are, they're a good reason to reevaluate our own corporate security systems. As "guardians" of the inner workings of our organizations, we have to ask ourselves, "How safe are we?"
What the Top Corporations Are Saying
In its biannual 2012 survey of security executives at Fortune 1,000 companies, "Top Security Threats and Management Issues Facing Corporate America," Securitas Security Services USA found the top four security threats unchanged from its 2010 study:
• Cyber/communications security
• Workplace violence prevention/response
• Business continuity planning/organizational resilience
• Employee selection/screening
In a slightly ironic twist, the survey ranked "identity theft," "crisis management and response: terrorism" and "executive protection (including travel security)" 10th, 15th and 18th, respectively, on its list of priority threats.
Following a summer of news about security breaches; the expansion of the reach of the Islamic State in the Middle East complete with filmed beheadings of Western hostages (including two Americans); renewed and intense warfare between Israel and Hamas; Russia's invasion of the Ukraine; and now the Ebola virus epidemic, one might expect the 2014 Securitas survey priorities to be somewhat different than the last two studies indicated.
Cyber-attacks Still Trump Terrorist Attacks
At the same time, the corporate security threat most prominently in the news right now also occurred this past summer: JPMorgan Chase's systemic cyber-attack that the nation's largest bank initially tried to play down, indicating perhaps "a few million" customer accounts may have been hacked (no small deal if one or more of those accounts happen to be yours). Now, recent revelations are that as many as 76 million households – the equivalent of two-thirds of American households – may have been compromised by the massive intrusion.
At the moment, it appears that "only" personal customer contact data may have been stolen (as if that's not serious enough), while there's not yet evidence that account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, etc. were compromised, according to a New York Times report. Still, security experts don't seem to know what the ultimate extent of the damage will be. The JPMorgan Chase break-in follows well-publicized intrusions into the I.T. realms of Target, Home Depot, Nieman Marcus and other sizeable retail institutions – with the holiday shopping season just around the corner.
What to Expect Next?
With so much unrest around the globe and even the White House no longer sacrosanct as far as safety is concerned, companies and their HR departments can likely expect many corporate security budgets to be increased in the next fiscal year.
Should we be worried about a potential terror attack on our offices or cities here or abroad? Disruption of the global financial markets due to geopolitical instability? Armed intruders seeking revenge against a company or targeted employees penetrating our premises?
Following the recent JPMorgan Chase incident, one computer security expert was quoted as saying, "Security is out of your control." Though he was speaking in the context of urging citizens to lobby for legislation to regulate third-party use of personal data, his words may have been more prescient than he realized.