Sec 320 - Organizational Security and Assessment Paper - Vulnerable Areas of Industrial Security Operations

Organizational Security and Expansion Assessment Paper

Kevin M Thompson

SEC/320 Survey of Security Specializations

June 7, 2011

Jeffrey Jones

Vulnerable Areas of Industrial Security Operations

The Dow Chemical Company is a multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan. As of 2010, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the world by revenue and as of February 2009, the third-largest chemical company in the world by market capitalization. In 2010, Dow Chemical Company had revenue of over 50 billion dollars and had approximately 50,000 employees worldwide.

Dow Chemical Company has many vulnerable areas of security in their industrial operations. Security is key component of the company because they have to be vigilant of chemical security, physical security, terrorism and counterterrorism, supply chain and transportation, information security, and emergency response/disaster preparedness. This paper will be limited to discussing sabotage, espionage, and transportation. Also, this paper will look at some possible countermeasures to those vulnerable security areas.

Vulnerable areas of Sabotage

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, industrial sabotage is a well-documented phenomenon. Sabotage involves the intentional disruption of the business activity of an enterprise. The motives for industrial sabotage vary, but include labor management conflict, extortion, political conflict, and commercial competition. Most cases of sabotage are caused by employees who have a grudge against the company or business. Employees who have been disciplined by management, laid off/fired, demoted, are most likely to sabotage a business.

In 2010, a scientist had to face charges that he passed on trade secrets worth more than $100 million about a commercial insecticide developed by Dow Chemical Co. to China. The scientist was arrested after being indicted on 12 counts of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government and five counts of interstate or foreign transportation of stolen property. This case is an example of how important industrial security to any major corporation. It is important that all security personnel receive training on how to recognize any unusual behavior. However, it is not possible to know if or when a disgruntled employee will cause an act of sabotage. Some of the possible countermeasures to sabotage are to conduct mandatory exit interviews, personally assign security to personnel that are fired and ensure that they are escorted throughout the building, cut off all access to computers, safes, or business machines, and to make sure that employees do not leave the building with company owned property.

Vulnerable Areas of Espionage

Espionage is the act of spying to gather secret information without the knowledge of the person or entity. Also, espionage has been around for a very long time and Dow Chemical Company has had its share of espionage incidents. In February 2011, a former employee was convicted and sentenced