Law Office of Seaton M. Daly III, P.L.L.C.

 

Now that over 90,000 "classified" documents relating to the progress, or lack thereof, of the War in Afghanistan have been disclosed by Wikileaks, many questions have been raised as to what extent the damage has been done to U.S. national security.  The person alleged to have been involved in the leak, Mr. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, possibly is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exactly how this could have happened.  It could safely be argued that the U.S. military has some of the most sophisticated technological devices on the planet, and yet even they are prone to the failures related to people and processes.  As investigations and hearings into this matter ramp up, I believe that it will be shown that there were fundamental breakdowns in areas where the government, specifically the Army, could have been more diligent in securing that information.  The lesson learned here - once again - is that reliance on technology to mitigate the release of mission-critical data is a futile expenditure when viewing it from a totality of circumstances.

 

To read more about the Afghan document leakage, please click here:  Who is the 22 year-old Army analyst at the center of the Wikileaks firestorm?

 

 

After an extended hiatus from blogging, due to the birth of my new baby daughter, The Emerging Business Advocate is back!

 

In Washington, D.C., today, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and U.S. President Barack Obama met to talk about current U.S.-British relations.  As part of their meeting, the two heads of state addressed the national security concerns related to cyber-security.  Recently, a Glasgow-born hacker, Mr. Gary McKinnon, was accused by the U.S. government of hacking into its military computers, and stealing important, top secret military information.  Mr. McKinnon, who has been arrested and is awaiting extradition to the U.S., stated that he was only trying to find evidence of UFOs. 

 

At the White House press conference today, President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron both reaffirmed the increasing challenge faced by the Internet and the need for a greater degree of cooperation on cyber-security matters.  Authorities in the United States allege that between February 2001 and March 2002, Mr. McKinnon hacked into dozens of US army, navy, air force, and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers.  They also say Mr. McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US naval air station not long after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

 

The New York Times reported today that "a group of hackers said Wednesday that it had obtained the e-mail addresses of 114,000 owners of 3G Apple iPads, including those of military personnel, business executives and public figures, by exploiting a security hole on AT&T's Web site."  As access to information becomes more expansive throughout the consumer world, corporations are going to need to respond in a proactive manner to the way in which they go about securing mission-critical information.  This starts with implementing a data governance program within the organization itself, and then regulating, by proxy, the external partnerships that it enters into.  Today's announcement by AT&T will not only effect the valuation of AT&T, but also the valuation of Apple.  For reasons that are obvious, both parties have damage to their brand reputation that they will have to overcome in order to drive more revenues.

 

To read more about this article, please click here:  AT&T Said to Expose iPad Users' Addresses

 

 

As the technological threats to corporate well-being increasingly become an every day occurrence, more and more boardrooms are beginning to allow their Chief Technology Officer's (CIO) a greater substantive say in how to mitigate risks associated with internal and external controls.  However, that progress has not come without some fault of the CIO's.  The requests by CIO's to expend capital assets, ever since Y2K, to protect the corporate infrastructure, have never truly given corporate directors any cause for excitement in the way of investment-back expectation.  The result has usually been high expenditures that show little in the way of profit contribution to the organization.  That attitude is slowly shifting back in favor of the CIO so long as he/she is aware of how to balance the technical decisions that need to be made to protect corporate infrastructure with that of business profitability. 

 

On May 24, 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that CIO's are more important than ever to the overall success of an organization, but their lack of percieved broader management skills has inhibited their ability to attain any higher role within the organization (i.e. CEO) - especially outside the technology industry.  The observations by the WSJ, based on an 11 year study where over 600 IT professionals attended a development program sponsored by the newspaper, shows that the areas where CIO's lack greatest in broader management skills include: (1) Leadership; (2) Strategic Thinking; (3) Synthesis Skills; (4) Communication Skills; (5) Influence Skills; and (6) Relationship Skills.  The study suggests that if a CIO can admit and recognize that they don't have the full set of skills it takes to be a senior executive and take an active role in guiding the company, then their ability to climb the corporate ladder will become severely limited.  Once the CIO can come to grips with that reality, and begin the process of acquiring such skills, they will earn the right to assume a much more prominent role within the organization.  The role of the CIO is evolving, and like any profession, the need to focus on professional development will become key to future successes.

 

 

 

Today's historic plummet of stock prices in New York may have been triggered by what is going on with the credit crisis in Greece and the rest of Europe; it may also have been aided by the Chinese "readjustment" of its money to account for inflation; but the most probable rumor is that high-speed, computerized algorithmic trading used by institutional investors is what caused stock prices to plunge 700 points in a 10-minute span.  Again, the technology works, but the training and accountability of people and processes that are engaged in the technology are the true point of concern.  The purge in the stock market today exemplified the importance of addressing the "human factor" in handling technology.  Until the focus on people and processes is addressed in a serious manner (not fluffed by more regulation that is not likely to be enforced), this may be the "norm" for the future of trading stocks.  Makes one really reconsider whether investing in the markets is a smart thing to do with ones hard-earned money.

 

Read the following article, and keep this point in mind:  U.S. Stock Plunge Raises Alarm on Algo Trading