2. Besides cell phones, can you think of other personal items that represent threats to a company’s information, digital or otherwise? What are they? Should companies be able to restrict such items in the work place? Can You See It Now?

After a long weekend working with your information technology team, you are confi dent that the company’s server is thoroughly protected from outside attacks.68 You and your team spent months planning and four days working around the clock to update the IT system, install, fi rewalls, and load SSL into the company’s e-commerce tools, just to name a few of the security measures you upgraded. Now your company’s information is protected with the latest and greatest.

When you stumble back to work on Wednesday, you follow your familiar route through the marketing department.

Turning a corner, you overhear a junior marketing employee talking on her cell phone. She’s saying, “I’m sooooooo far behind. No, really, I am. Check it out.”

Then she lifts her cell phone in the air and begins taking pictures of her desk.

Suddenly, you’ve lost your mission-accomplished swagger. Your team just spent thousands of labor hours protecting the company’s digital assets, but anybody with a camera phone can take pictures of printouts, offi ce layouts, client lists, accounting reports, marketing strategies, trade secrets—anything. A cell phone is the telecommunication version of a Swiss army knife:

a versatile tool with potentially dangerous capabilities.

Most cell phones have large memories for storing images, and what’s more, they have GPRS technology, which enables them to connect them wirelessly to the Internet. Someone could take a picture of sensitive information, and in seconds, it could travel around the world and land on a competitor’s computer (or cell phone, for that matter)