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If you're doing business internationally, IT security might be more of a nightmare than you know. This book does an excellent job of helping you through the mine fields... Mapping Security - The Corporate Security Sourcebook For Today's Global Economy by Tom Patterson. Chapter List: Part 1 - Charting A Course: Why You Picked Up This Book; Establishing Your Coordinates; Building The Base; Enabling Business And Enhancing Process; Developing Radar; Constant Vigilance Part 2 - Reality, Illusion, And The Souk: Europe; The Middle East And Africa; The Americas; Asia Pacific; Outsourcing And Your Map Part 3 - Whose Law Do I Break?: Mapping Solutions; Mapping Law; Mapping Technology; Mapping Culture; Mapping Your Future; Local Security Resources By Country; Index Patterson takes an approach to global technology security that I've never seen before. He talks about how differing countries, laws, and cultures can all conspire against you when it comes to maintaining (legally!) security for a global organization. Conceptually you probably know that not all laws are the same as the ones in the United States, but you may not know or understand just how different they are. For example, if you have a server in France running an HR or a payroll system and you back up the data to a server outside of the country, guess what? You're in violation of French data security laws. It's that easy... Part 2 of the book was very interesting. He takes some of more significant countries in terms of global and cross-border commerce and scores them with an index value that takes a number of security issues into consideration. You'll learn that every country, no matter how cheap or technologically adept they are, have significant hindrances that could make or break your business if you're not prepared to deal with them. Language is a major issue, as well as nationality. Even though you may be opening up shop in a country that speaks English, you can usually count on the fact that sending an American over to tell them how to run the security is a bad idea. You need to be able to partner with a local firm or find someone from the country to handle the day-to-day issues in order to make sure all is running well. Patterson covers this and a lot more in the book, and it's actually interesting reading, too. He keeps the conversation with the reader moving along at a decent pace, along with interspersing little sidebars on cross-cultural issues that you may never have considered. IT security professionals who work for global organizations or who have outsourced operations will do well to pick up a copy of this book to make sure they are abiding by all the laws that could affect them. The book's far cheaper than fines that could be levied by the country whose laws you break. Comment | Permalink | (Report this)