A Risk Assessment of Piql Services by FFI

Cause

Threat: Theft of trade secrets on piqlFilm committed by insider on behalf of someone standing to gain financially from the information obtained.

Type of risk (Hazard/Threat)

Intentional (Yes/No/Both)

Yes.

The rival oil company X is one of the biggest in the world. It has shown in the past that it is without scruples and willing to bend the rules to reach its objectives. Moreover, as it is state-owned, it has huge resources at its disposal. Due to the scarcity of oil and accompanying high prices, the rival oil company X is motivated to go to extreme measures to get a bigger market share. In acquiring the oil well data in question, where the new method of oil well analysis is used, the rival company X gains new insight into which oil wells on the depleted market have the potential for further exploration, and the financial reward could be considerable in the current market. A second, less vital, aspect is how the rival oil company X also gets access to information on how oil company Y conducts oil well analyses generally, and is able to compare the efficiency of their respective methods to perhaps make a change in the future. Oil company X resorts to bribing a Piql operator. Said operator suffers from gambling addiction and is in grave financial debt, and so is open to bribes. As one of the major state-owned oil companies of the world, the rival oil company X has the financial resources available to bribe the insider with large sums of money. It also has a lack of scruples to engage in such acts of corruption.

Profile of actor (if intentional)

Description of cause

Competence and resources (if intentional)

User/value

User class

Business sensitive.

User type

Oil and gas sector. Major oil company Y.

Value

Trade secrets, specifically oil well analyses of ―dry‖ wells which details how new technology can be applied to old seismic data to show if an oil well is profitable after all. The information is potentially worth millions of USD. Highly company confidential. Even if the information is eventually recovered or the company have copies, the loss of the company’s market position due to loss of confidentiality is very damaging.

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FFI-RAPPORT 16/00707