Ricoh Aficio Common Security Features Guide
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Information is an Asset
Did you know that 90% of all corporate espionage is conducted by someone within the organization, a
trusted employee in or near a position of power with seemingly impeccable credentials?
Motives range from monetary gain to emotional revenge but the result is the same: information a
company deems classified or personal is used against it in an effort to disrupt business. Depending
upon the severity of the leak and the financial investment involved, the results can be devastating.
Stealing secrets is not uncommon in today’s ultra competitive business culture, where being the first to
market with a new technology or leapfrogging a competitor’s current capabilities, if only for a few
months, can have dramatic impact on the bottom line. Consider these real life business examples
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Recently a New Jersey electronics firm executive was charged with breaking into a competitor’s
network and attempting to steal its customer and supplier lists in an effort to undercut their pricing to
win business.
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In 2004 a man was arrested for trying to sell blueprints needed to repair aircraft engines that were
stolen from a U.S. company to another country.
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In 2003 two men were charged with stealing and selling company secrets from an auto parts
manufacturer.
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Theft is not limited to paper-based or electronic information. In 2005, a scandal erupted at Atlanta-
based Coca-Cola Co. when the assistant to the global brand director was accused of stealing
documents as well as
an actual sample of a new beverage formula under development
and trying to
sell them to rival Pepsi.
It seems like every week we hear another instance of subscriber lists, credit cardholder files, or medical
records being stolen ostensibly for identify theft purposes. Even the federal government’s top secret Los
Alamos lab has suffered security breaches with entire laptops disappearing. And we haven’t even
touched on the highest profile security application: military and government agencies and contractors.
Yet, the truth is all the protection in the world may not stop a network-savvy thief who is determined to
engage in espionage. But these threats can be minimized.
Recognizing the dangers that exist, (and in some cases via painful firsthand experiences), device access
and data security has quickly moved to the top of the list of customer concerns and purchase criteria.
However, protecting information can be expensive. Threats are everywhere and each time one loophole
is closed, another opens. For example, left unchecked, employees can scan and send data to any net-
work address, or copy data directly to portable CDs or thumb drives. Hackers present a constant threat
to corporate networks, while the convenience of wireless connectivity has simultaneously opened another
window of vulnerability into the corporate network. Companies today spend an incredible amount of
their time, money, and resources performing risk assessments and securing their information systems.
The bottom line: Data is inert. It cannot move, change, be copied, or erased without some sort of
human manipulation or instruction. That is why even the most well conceived security plan is subject to
some risk when the workflow involves variables including people, paper, multiple devices, and worker
habits and their motives.
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Cited examples from “Cola caper points up need for toughened safeguards,” published in Arizona Republic, courtesy of
Associated Press, August 2005.
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