Chapter 4: The International Widget Corporation (IWC)

—Capitalism needs to function like a game of tug-of-war. Two opposing sides need to continually struggle for dominance, but at no time can either side be permitted to walk away with the rope.—Pete Holiday^[1]

Chapter Objective

The objective of this chapter, "The International Widget Corporation (IWC)," is to establish and describe a fictitious international corporation in which the information systems security officer (ISSO) will work. This method is used to assist the new ISSO, or an experienced ISSO who is looking for some new ideas for an information protection program, by providing a more practical model to help learn how to build a corporate information assets protection program (CIAPP) for a corporation. In other words, this is more of a "real-life" approach using real scenarios. The scenarios and the actions taken are based on actual situations found in today's modern business environments.^[2]

^[1]http://www.quoteland.com/topic.asp?CATEGORY_ID=18

^[2]This chapter is based both on Chapter 3 of the first edition of this book and on Chapter 5 of this author's coauthored book (with Edward P. Halibozek), The Manager's Handbook for Corporate Security: Establishing and Managing a Successful Assets Protection Program, also published by Butterworth—Heinemann, 2003.