Don’t Do Secure Things from Insecure Places

Abstract

Tom is a senior sales associate for Magnatec Inc. (MTec), a large, US-based business-to-business (B2B) electrical parts supplier. He has current customers in 42 of 50 states and the potential for customers in all 50. Not surprisingly, Tom spends a great deal of his time on the road making sales calls to potential customers and servicing current customers. MTec has assigned him the typical road warrior “tools of the trade”—a laptop, tablet, and smartphone. All of Tom’s gear is preconfigured by his corporate IT department. Tom takes advantage of Internet access wherever he happens to find himself: hotel rooms, coffee shops, customer conference rooms, fast-food restaurants, public restrooms, etc. He is totally indiscriminant and approaches the decision to use an available Wi-Fi based solely on convenience. When he finds a reliable and fast Internet connection, Tom often has four to six hours of work to catch up on. This can include entering new sales orders, sending queries to his sales team, requesting technical support, submitting receipts for per diem reimbursements, and the like. Tom is on the road roughly 150 days a year, so he’s often catching up on his personal to-do list as well. Paying bills, checking credit card statements, and sending receipts for tax purposes to his accountant are all on his list.