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Offsite Meeting Security: Test Your Convergence IQ

Executives are gathering at a sensitive offsite meeting. Can you spot 12 riskssome physical, some digital? Turn the page to check your answers.

Fix: Have the printer sign a confidentiality agreement and agree not to tape the original copy to the outside of the box, where it can easily be perused. Provide for secure transportation to and storage at the meeting location.

Bonus points: Give attendees a secure way to get the materials they need back to headquarters, perhaps by providing self-addressed FedEx envelopes.Risk 5A second, more subtle risk associated with local copy centers or shipping stores: Offsite attendee may have received a sensitive fax.

Fix: In the secure support room, include a fax machine, photocopier, high-quality printer and paper shredder so that people won't have to use local copy shops or the hotel business center.

Bonus points: Consider securing another extra room to be used as a lounge. Keep it stocked with snacks and drinks, and encourage people to take breaks there rather than in public areas.Risk 6The room could have been wired for sound and video before your company arrived.

Fix: Before the meeting, sweep the room for bugs using professional countersurveillance equipment. Then make sure the room is locked or supervised at all times.

Bonus points: Don't forget that surveillance devices can be planted in drop ceilings or adjacent rooms, or hidden in plain sightdisguised as smoke detectors, clocks or even pens.Risk 7Catering staff could be hired or paid off by corporate spies.

Fix: Make sure the hotel's general manager or meeting planner has signed a confidentiality agreement on behalf of the hotel and staff.

Bonus points: Pick the conference site carefully. Even a reputable chain hotel is only as good as the general manager of a particular site.Risk 8 Coffee urns could contain hidden surveillance devices.

Fix: Be wary of anything brought into the room after it has been swept for bugs.

Bonus points: Keep the amount of food service equipment in the room to a minimum to decrease the number of places a surveillance device could be hidden.Risk 9 The service door is unprotected.

Fix: Make sure that all service doors are locked whenever security is not present. Monitor back corridors during the event if necessary.

Bonus points: The locks on all the doors to the room should be re-cored, and only the hotel manager and the company's security staff should have the key. If the room can't be locked for some reason, a security officer should be stationed in the room starting after the bug sweep.Risk 10Wireless microphones are transmitting meeting content outside the room.

Fix: Make sure that all unencrypted wireless microphones have been removed from the room, and replace them with encrypted ones.