Page 4 - Business Travel

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2 Your IP (Intellectual Property)

Many organisations fail to comprehend the value of their IP and how that IP affects their market position as well
as the overall value of the organisation.

Your IP is what makes you competitive, differentiates you in the market and when breached can seriously affect
your bottom line. In the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017 cyber criminals used ransomware to prevent
victims accessing their IP unless a ransom was paid.

Many organisations have either dedicated cyber security
teams within their fraud prevention department while others
include it within their IT or security departments. Most try and
lock down their Intellectual property by various means, often
involving the use of technology against hackers or malware
and by educating or restricting access by employees. However,
one of the biggest risks to your IP is not the hacker or
concerted attack it’s the people within your organisation, either
as a result of human error or a disgruntled or ﬁnancially
incentivised employee.

Maintaining security for people accessing the systems
remotely can become more difficult placing your IP at risk. Do
remote employees have access via an unencrypted link from
their ipad, laptop or smartphone? If the link is encrypted, is it
difficult to use so that people download the information they
need and store it on their personal device. Does everyone use a
vpn or other security link on their phones, laptops and other
devices all the time or is their data open and exposed once
they disconnect from your secure link.

An instance that comes to mind for me was that of a stolen
laptop where the individual had downloaded all their
documents as the secure link was too slow when they were
travelling. This was against company policy but as a Director
they had persuaded IT to allow the downloads.

A report issued by the US chamber of commerce

stated that publicly traded U.S. companies own an
estimated $5 trillion worth of trade secrets. A

report by PWC suggested that an estimate of the
loss that could be attributed to the theft of trade
secrets is between 1 and 3 percent of the US GDP

(Yeh, B. 2016).

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