HP leak probe extended to employees
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In an apology to employees, Chairman Patricia Dunn notes that two HP workers were also targeted.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard has turned over thousands of documents to a U.S. House subcommittee investigating methods the company used to find out who was leaking company information to the media, a subcommittee spokesman said Monday. "The committee did receive thousands of pages of documents from HP. Staff investigators are reviewing them now," said Terry Lane of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. HP confirmed it responded to the subcommittee's request but didn't go beyond that. "We are complying with the House Subcommittee'sÂ request for informationÂ but are not releasing the details of what's being provided for the committee's inquiry," said HP spokesman Ryan Donovan. The inquiry springs from revelations that HP hired an outside investigative firm that used questionable tactics to find theÂ source of leaks from the HP boardÂ to news media in 2005 and 2006. HP, in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Sept. 6, acknowledged that unnamed outside investigators used "pretexting," a form of subterfuge where investigators pose as someone else, to obtain personal phone records of people it was investigating. The committee is considering federal legislation to make pretexting illegal. The House panel, in a Sept. 11 letter to HP Board Chairman Patricia Dunn, asked HP to: Identify the outside investigative firms it hired; identify the people within HP who authorized, participated in or had knowledge of HP's investigation; provide copies of contracts between HP and any outside firms; disclose the identities of everyone whose phone records were procured, or were attempted to be procured; and provide other information. HP, of Palo Alto, California, has refused to identify the outside firms it hired, but various media reports have identified them as Security Outsourcing Services, of Needham, Massachusetts, and Action Research Group, of Melbourne, Florida. Although HP has claimed that its legal advisors told it that the pretexting was within the law, an HP security specialist reportedly questioned its legality earlier this year. Fred Adler, a computer-crimes specialist within HP's global security division, and a former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, notified his supervisors that acquiring people's phone records under false pretenses could be against the law, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The subcommittee has invited Dunn and HP General Counsel Ann Baskins to testify at a committee hearing Sept. 28 and a committee source told the Journal they would appear. HP's Donovan would not comment. Larry Sonsini of the Palo Alto law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati was also invited to testify but it's not known if he will appear. Ronald DeLia of Security Outsourcing Solutions, also invited, hasn't replied, but the Journal quoted a committee source as saying that if DeLia were to testify he said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not testify to protect against self-incrimination.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 18--Hewlett-Packard faces a deadline today to provide Congress with  documents about its boardroom-leak probe, which is under criminal  investigation by the California attorney general.
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(InfoWorld) - In one telling moment during the recent Congressional hearings onÂ the Hewlett-Packard Co. board scandal, ousted chairman Patricia Dunn offered the "everybody does it" defense. Asked by one legislator about HPâs hiring private investigators who obtained phone records under false pretenses, a practice called pretexting, to identify whoâd leaked confidential information, Dunn replied, "I believe these [pretexting] methods may be quite common at companies around the country." If so, that is chilling to business ethicist Kirk Hanson. "As an ethicist Iâm horrified that HPâs managers relied on the assertion that it was borderline, but legal, and never asked whether it was ethical," says Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, California. If HP adopted what Hanson called "black ops" as standard investigative practices, he wonders how many other companies have done it. HP, some of its employees and companies it hired to investigate boardroom leaks to news media still face potential civil and criminal liability for their actions. Other companies find themselves in a dilemma over how to control information within the law. Companies may have a moral or legal responsibility to respect peopleâs privacy, but they also have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to protect confidential business information. And under the federalÂ Sarbanes-Oxley ActÂ in effect the last four years, they have obligations to investigate certain leaks, Hanson says. Companies have a right to investigate their own employees if theyâre suspected of leaking information. Employees should presume no right to privacy in their use of company computers, e-mail programs or telephones. One commonly used tactic to probe security breaches doesnât even involve electronic snooping. Companies exclusively give suspected leakers seemingly important but relatively benign information. If it turns up in the media, the company has identified the leaker. But Hanson sees a bright line separating how a company can investigate its own employees and how it can investigate outsiders. The HP reaction to leaks to reporters contrasts with the recent practice of Apple Computer Inc. when proprietary information got out. Although Apple is known for its devotion to secrecy, it went to court rather than to private eyes when confidential information leaked in 2004. Apple, of Cupertino, California, sued in state court to force two Web sites to reveal sources for stories they posted about a possible new Apple product. A state appellate court ruled May 26 that the writers on those Web sites enjoy the same First Amendment rights as mainstream journalists and, thus, were protected by Californiaâs shield law from having to reveal their sources. Apple dropped the case. It did not reply to a request for comment on this story. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires companies to develop a whistle-blowing reporting system so employees can raise issues about improper behavior within the company, said Hanson. That has prompted companies to develop an investigative capability in the event improper or illegal activity is alleged. "So (under SOX), companies have developed much enhanced investigative capability," he said. Companies also have to keep confidential information safe because disclosure could be a criminal act or a breach of fiduciary responsibility, said Rob Enderle, senior analyst at Enderle Group, a technology market research firm. If word leaks that a board is contemplating an acquisition, for instance, the company or people in it could be prosecuted for insider trading if people used that knowledge to make stock trades. Given the potential liabilities, corporate investigations of leaks are "common," said Enderle. "The stuff with the pretexting goes to the extreme, but looking at company phone records or e-mails, that is very common. Hiring an outside contractor is also common." In fact, leak investigations enjoy broad support among corporate directors. In a September telephone survey of 226 board members at publicly traded companies in the U.S., 73 percent said a company's chairman should be empowered to use any legally available means to identify a board-level leaker, according to Ponemon Institute LLC. About 71 percent of the respondents said it would be okay for a board chairman to review the e-mail messages of other members, in addition to other types of confidential data stored on company computers. Fifty percent said that reviewing telephone records of individuals obtained via pretexting is proper as long as that approach hasn't been outlawed. But HPâs tactics of tailing reporters, attempting to install a tracer on a reporterâs e-mail program, pretexting numbers of people outside the company and even considering planting spies in newsrooms as janitors or clerical workers is "bizarre" to Rick Belluzzo. "The reaction by HP was totally out of proportion with the situation," said Belluzzo, chairman and CEO of Quantum Corp., a network storage equipment maker. His rÃ©sumÃ© includes president of Microsoft Corp. and a 23-year stint at HP, where he rose to the position of executive vice president of its computer division. While he understands the importance of keeping certain information confidential and making employees and directors sign confidentiality agreements, HP overreacted to information leaks that are sometimes going to happen anyway. "Itâs an impossible task to control information flow. Some leaks are inevitable," Belluzzo said.
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Extending beyond the skullduggery that pried loose people's private phone records, Hewlett-Packard Co. investigators hunting for a boardroom leak shadowed the company's directors and tried to install snooping software on at least one reporter's computer, according to published reports.
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Investigators for Hewlett-Packard Co. sought private telephone records of board members while hunting for leaks to the media of confidential company information, the computer maker said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
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Hewlett-Packard has turned over thousands of documents to a U.S. House subcommittee investigating methods the company used to find out who was leaking company information to the media, a subcommittee spokesman said Monday.
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In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Hewlett-Packard has revealed a history of leaked confidential information as well as details about how a board member quit over the investigations into those leaks.
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SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 16 -- Hewlett-Packard Co. officials said Saturday that the company improperly accessed phone records of a corporate spokesman during its investigation into leaks to the media.
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Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President Mark Hurd confirmed on Friday that he approved a probe of HP employees, board members and journalists in an effort to find out who on the HP board was leaking confidential information outside of the company.
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Hewlett-Packard says it discussed allegations that employees spied on rival, but Dell wants more thorough investigation.
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A House of Representatives panel on  Wednesday extended its probe into Hewlett-Packard Co.'s use of  private telephone records by subpoenaing five private  investigators to testify at a Thursday hearing.
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A US attorney general is investigating methods used by Hewlett Packard to spy on senior members of staff.
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By Stephen Foley in New York  Hewlett-Packard is facing a federal investigation into whether the company broke the law when the computer manufacturer obtained directors' and journalists' phone records as part of its attempt to hunt down the source of boardroom leaks.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.'s media leak investigation went forward despite warnings from HP security personnel that the tactics used were ``probably illegal" and should be stopped, according to documents collected for today's congressional hearing on the HP scandal.
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By Michelle Quinn and Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 22--With pressure mounting over its troubled internal investigation  of boardroom leaks, Hewlett-Packard is shifting into serious damage control.
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US federal prosecutors have asked for information on Hewlett Packard's probe into boardroom leaks, the group says.