Chubb's security firm helps clients "get smart"
Risk Control Strategies protects insureds' valuable information
By Phil Zinkewicz
In September of 1965, a new comedy series called “Get Smart” aired on television. Satirizing the spy movie genre then the rage—“Secret Agent,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,” etc.—“Get Smart” was the brainchild of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and starred Don Adams as a secret agent named Maxwell Smart. As a running gag, whenever it was necessary for Smart to contact headquarters, he would enter a telephone booth and take off his shoe, the heel of which contained a telephone dial. He then used the dial to call the head of his secret agency. (He could have used the phone in the booth, but that wouldn’t have been as funny.)
The show was filled with any number of “gadgets” such as the shoe phone and other gags spoofing all of the electronic “toys” that were especially part of the early James Bond movies. Of course, these gadgets didn’t really exist. Not then.
Today, however, is a whole different story. These communications and listening devices and minuscule cameras do exist and are being used by industrial spies who want to get a leg up on corporate decision-making, or by thieves and sexual predators who want to enter your house and endanger your family.
Recently, Risk Control Strategies (RCS), Chubb Corp.’s personal security consulting firm, held special “demonstrations” in New York to describe how the privacy of homes and commercial organizations can be breached and what RCS security experts can do about it. RCS executives described how their people can gather intelligence, design security architecture for estates, conduct a lifestyle diagnosis, protect clients from cyber crime and mitigate corporate and personal espionage.
These services, of course, are for Chubb’s upscale, well-to-do insureds who face particular exposures because of their financial positions. For VIP Chubb insureds the services are free, and for Signature Chubb insureds there is an annual fee of $150.
Conducting the demonstrations were: James Bracone, RCS director who described the architectural elements that go into protecting homes and estates; Diane T. Ort, RCS managing director in charge of intelligence and security who discussed the importance of background checks; Clyde R. Widrig, RCS senior managing director whose area of expertise involves listening devices that may be used to identify theft and corporate espionage; and Scot Braunzell, senior managing director and practice group leader for RCS’s cyber division.
In his presentation, Bracone showed a complex diagram of security measures that would be used to protect an insured’s home or estate from miscreants who might seek to gain entry for nefarious purposes. For example, Bracone described a 12-inch ditch that would be dug around the perimeter of the home into which special wiring would be placed and then covered up. An intruder who stepped over this wiring would immediately set off the bells and whistles necessary to alert the home owners even before that intruder had gained access. The diagram showed strategically placed cameras, both inside and outside the home. Police would be immediately notified, and within the house there is a safe area that family members could hide in until police arrived.
Ort discussed the importance of home owners of means doing background checks on all employees—butler, maid, chauffer, nanny, etc.—and also on any contract workers who have been in the house doing specialty work. “There have been cases of construction companies with whom an insured has contracted hiring illegal aliens to do certain jobs,” says Ort. “The owner of a home could be held liable under the law for using the illegal aliens.”
Widrig’s demonstration centered on listening devices that might be planted by corporate espionage professionals to break through the veil of privacy during company meetings. Widrig said these devices are easily available. In fact, he said, e-Bay sells hundreds of them a week. “Information is the lifeblood for most enterprises today,” he said. “Technological advances, while making communication easier and instantaneous for corporate entities, have a major downside when it comes to protecting personal and proprietary information that result in the ultimate success or failure of a business. It is imperative to know that your information, conversations and actions are secure from unauthorized eavesdropping in your offices, board rooms, homes, vehicles, planes or other areas where you have an expectation of privacy.”
Widrig offered the following example of how things can go wrong. “One company was planning a special board meeting during which members were to discuss and vote on some delicate issues. They called us in to make certain that the board room was clean of any bugs or other listening devices so that, on the scheduled day of the meeting, they could be sure of complete privacy. We did just that.
“The board had their meeting and made its decisions, but before the company could make a public announcement, information was leaked to the press as to what they were discussing,” Widrig continues. “They called us back and were a bit angry, thinking that we had missed a bug that had been planted. We assured them that the board room was clean, but upon further discussion we found that the company president had had board members over to his house for dinner some nights before and, at that time, they discussed what would be voted on during the board meeting. It was the house that was bugged.”
Braunzell ended the demonstrations by talking about cyber walls and how they may be infiltrated by robot networks used by hackers. “These hackers are not just the usual impish college students who hack into computers for fun. These are professional criminals and terrorists that want to gain information either for sale or for the commission of a crime,” said Braunzell.
The RCS executive demonstrated how RCS first detects robot networks and then creates firewalls to deter the activity. “Make no mistake about it,” said Braunzell. “There is such a thing as cyber terrorism. We take a defensive position 24 hours a day, seven days a week to root out these hackers.” *