Securing knowledge assets and processes: Lessons from the defense and intelligence sectors

Knowledge resources are the source of competitive advantages for organizations, unless we have apt security measures in place we risk losing them to acts of theft, misuse, espionage, and disasters. Securing knowledge assets is important given the current economic, social, and political conditions, such as the surge in terrorist and industrial espionage activities. The problem of managing knowledge security gets compounded when we have to work in a distributed and heterogeneous setting. While private sector organizations have long taken knowledge security for granted, this is not the case in the intelligence and defense sectors of the government, especially those involved with issues of national security. In this paper, we will draw on key insights from investigating knowledge security protocols in five such organizations. Our findings provide insights on how private organizations should secure their most valuable resource - "knowledge".