Chapter 10. Unsecure Email

Privacy is the essential foundation for all human rights and freedoms indeed, for our very humanity. Violations of privacy strike at the core of our human dignity.

Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union, Professor, New York Law School

You are now President of the United States of America. Sit back and feel powerful. Now get ready for some bad news. The Secretary of Defense informs you that at 04:20 this morning, a terrorist attacked a convoy on its way to the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. There were no survivors. At this point, no one has any idea how the incident happened.

A few days later, you learn how. According to your Secretary of Defense, the security breach that facilitated the attack was caused by a single piece of email. One Corporal Len Johnson, a Marine Corps security guard stationed in Saudi, had been using email to keep in touch with his family at home. The evening before the attack, he wrote his wife, "The Commandant and a senator are arriving tomorrow at 04:00. I have to get up early to escort them from the airport back to the embassy, so I won't be able to call you in the morning as we'd planned. I'll email later to let you know when to expect my call. Hugs and kisses to the kids...Len"

Unfortunately for Len's friends and family, and the other members of the convoy, his email message was not encrypted. The Secretary of Defense is fairly certain that Corporal Johnson's email to his wife was intercepted by a terrorist.

Do you think it's strange that a corporal would be sending an unencrypted email message home to his wife? Maybe not. Business executives send unencrypted email all the time on highly sensitive topics upcoming stock offerings, new product plans, mergers, acquisitions, and so on. Why expect an enlisted man to see risk where so many executive managers should, but don't? Just consider…



IT Security. Risking the Corporation
IT Security: Risking the Corporation
ISBN: 013101112X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 73

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