National Security and Outsourcing
The current spate of globalization brought myriad benefits to industries around the world. The United States alone benefited by way of outsourcing a lot of its industries to Third World Countries and emerging economies like China, India, the Philippines and Russia. The main reason for this endeavor is the "bottom line." The low labor and operational costs offered by these countries make for an attracted business proposition especially when it comes to satisfying the investment returns of major stockholders. Outsourcing has been done to almost everything from business processes, customer rela
This is one of the major problems that faced outsourcing. But despite the hefty return in revenue, outsourcing is by no means totally secure or safe. Aside from the economic impact, national security can be compromised in terms of theft of technology. "Several studies are in the works assessing the danger, if any, that offshore outsourcing poses to national security, said Amit Yoran, director of cyber-security at the Department of Homeland Security. In one security breach last year, three former employees of MphasiS, a company providing outsourcing services, were arrested for stealing more than $350,000 from four customers of Citibank. The workers were accused of acquiring passwords and transferring money from customers' bank accounts into their own. tions management, production and technical services. 2004)" This may only be the tip of the iceberg but if Americans doing outsourcing are not cognizant of all the threats and dangers posed by this, then more horrors are in store from the modern version of Pandora's Box. 'It does have national security implications, and those implications are being looked at, Yoran said in an interview. Some segments of the US society looked at outsourcing as a threat to national security - and they are far from wrong! In one example last year: "India's 350,000 call-center workers are starting to mount, some outsourcing providers forgo background checks of employees and even help applicants dress up their resumes. (Germain, 2006)"The situation may only be a commercial problem but if taken exponentially and ends up hitting a lot of the American public, situations such as these may hold the US hostage economically by way of funds being stolen on a grand scale. American firms owning proprietary technology information may end up getting their processes reversed engineered when these technologies or parts thereof are outsource in various means such as its maintenance or operations.
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Philippines Russia,
Homeland Security,
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Amit Yoran,
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World Countries,
Pandora's Box,
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