Homework Responses Wk 2

               Security professionals have the challenging task of protecting assets from both external and internal threats.  Be it documents, products, data, or even employees, they must constantly be on watch for indications of espionage.  Like the lesson mention, there is no typical spy and could be anyone from a maintenance person all the way up to an executive.  The acronyms MICE and CRIME cover key characteristics for these actions.  Money, ideology, compromise, and ego are important factors while the second acronym adds revenge that I believe is critical as a characteristic.  Some characteristics can be easier to explain than others.  If someone offers a large amount of cash to a janitor to place a recording device in a board room, this would be a pretty clear case of monetary motivation.  Something as simple as an insult is also capable to drive someone to share secrets out of revenge or stroke their own ego to ‘show them who’s boss’.  Detecting these cases can also be a challenge and in some cases could take years to prove and result in court battles between companies.

                Rival corporations I believe can be more ruthless in some cases than rival nations and push ethical business practices to gain a competitive edge over a rival organization.  A four-year feud between GM and Volkswagen occurred in the late '90s when a GM executive refused a promotion and instead accepted a similar job with Volkswagen along with several executives, he took with him and was accused of stealing thousands of pages of documents with trade secrets (Meredith, 1997).  Ultimately the two settled out of court but the motivation wasn't clear in this case.  Volkswagen never publicly apologized for the incident but one key indicator is the executive turned down a promotion at GM and instead accepted a position similar to his current one with a competitor.  The executive Mr. Lopez was credited for revolutionizing the parts ordering department for the automotive industry and saving GM a substantial sum of money (Meredith, 1997).  This defection likely could have been an act driven by ego or revenge.  He was eventually offered a promotion; however, it may have not been enough for what he felt he accomplished for GM and instead accepted a position with Volkswagen as well as taking several other personnel with him.  While an executive’s salary is substantial, cases like this show there is a legitimate reason to include additional characteristics beyond money for espionage.

Respectfully,

Bryan Williams

Reference

Meredith, R. (1997, January 10). VW Agrees to Pay GM $100 Million in Espionage Suit. Retrieved from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/10/business/vw-agrees-to-pay-gm-100-million-in-espionage-suit.html