How rigorously do you guard against the risk of visitors surreptitiously photographing confidential assets? Two engineers whose employer had a $1.2M contract with a Chinese tire maker are facing 150 years in the slammer for allegedly scamming their way into a Goodyear plant in Kansas and secretly photographing proprietary equipment. So maybe it's time to review that security plan.A news story on our excellent security site, Dark Reading, reported that just after U.S.-based Wyko Tire Technology landed the contract in 2007, two of its engineers visited the Goodyear plant under false pretenses. Quoting a Justice Department document, Dark Reading said the two engineers then "used a cell phone to surreptitiously photograph proprietary [off-the-road] tire manufacturing equipment."

The photos of the proprietary equipment were then allegedly sent to a Wyko subsidiary in England, where they were used to make replicas of that equipment for the Chinese tire maker, Justice said.

This cloak-and-dagger tale from Dark Reading serves as a good reminder that while cutting-edge cybersecurity threats continue to represent significant dangers for businesses and deserve unwavering attention, vulnerabilities also exist in the more-pedestrian physical world and need to be addressed as well.