Secure Knowledge Capital, Information Security Due Diligence, and Regulatory Compliance

The value of a business Firm lies in its earning power for professional services rendered or product manufactured & distributed, and that earning power derives efficiency from such intangible factors as assembled work force, business know how, work force tools, installed business systems, client lists, document libraries & templates, and intellectual work product. It is in professional practice that time most truly equates one-to-one to money, and any loss of earning power due to diminished efficiency, from whatever source derived (whether computer outage or misplaced or stolen client files) can be detrimental, even catastrophic, to the profitability (or worse, the effectiveness!) of the firm.

The most valuable intangible asset for any business firm is intellectual property - data, information, work product, and know-how - all of which is susceptible to theft, natural disaster, infrastructure failure, and malicious attack. Due diligence is required throughout the lifecycle of the information value chain. Physical space and offsite storage must be secure, infrastructure must be tested for vulnerabilities, information systems must be safe from intruders, and digital data must be encrypted while at rest on the disk drive or while traveling on the wire.

Therefore, the life blood of a business firm is data and its most widely-traded, quantifiable work product, information. The protection of that information is paramount; disaster recovery and business continuity planning suggest it, professional ethics among the many governing bodies and professional societies require it, and in many cases, the law and the business Firm's very success demand it.

Information security requires extensive planning. From physical access of premises to encryption of disk drives to secure use of social media websites, constant diligence is required, and that diligence spans many disciplines across physical security, fraud prevention & detection, accountancy, computer information systems, cryptography, competitive intelligence, and online monitoring.