WallStreetJournal
The whole country is now worried about the specter of cyber attacks that will bring down the electricity grid. Big Oil is worried about another kind of cybersecurity: eavesdropping. Exxon spent $222,985 last year on security for chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson. The bulk of that went for standard-issue stuff: a car and driver, and residential security.
But just over $9,000 apparently went for his phones, listed in Exxon’s proxy statement as security expenses “for mobile phones and other communications equipment for conducting businSecuring high-level conversations in an age where everybody has a cellphone has become something of a national obsession.
After he won the election, President Obama warned handlers would have to “pry” his Blackberry out of his hands; he eventually was equipped with a special secure phone rigged up by the National Security Agency.ess in a secure manner.”
But corporate chieftains—especially globe-trotting oil execs–can’t live in a communications-free bubble, which would explain Exxon’s expenditure on Mr. Tillerson’s secure mobile phones.
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