No matter how you feel about the WikiLeaking of the U.S. State Departmentdocuments, you have to admit this — the opportunity for riskexposure in our brave new increasingly connected world is growingby leaps and bounds.

And whether you consider WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a freedom-of-speech hero, aninternational spy who should be executed for treason, or justanother guy accused of sexual assault, you have to agreethat he's got a lot of people scared of him.

Like Bank of America, for one. Just last week, afterthe exiled Assange announced to Forbes that the target of his next documentdump would involve a “major American bank,” BOA'sstock took a hit. The latest news is that the financial giantis gearing up for whatever may come by setting up a “war room” todeal with the fallout — even though there has never been definitiveproof that they're the target of Assange's next attack.

The lesson here is twofold. The first, obviously, is that thealways-important need for careful corporate risk management hastaken on new urgency in the world of Web 2.0 (or whatever numberwe're up to now). As an independent insurance agent or broker,it's unlikely that any web vigilante will be drawing a beadon your business's documents anytime soon. But with mostbusiness today being conducted online, and with thesteady increase in cyberhacking, the risk just becomes riskierevery day. And if you're not at risk, your corporate or evenpersonal customers probably are.

The second lesson is more pervasive, and more frightening —that just about anyone with a vendetta and a littletechnological know-how can hold a business hostage in just the wayAssange did with his non-specific comment about targeting anAmerican bank.

Assange apologists maintain that plenty of people already hadaccess to the State Department documents, and that most of theirrevelations weren't exactly a big surprise. Other may say it's amatter of ethics — that if a business (or government) doesn't haveanything to hide, it doesn't have anything to fear. Both theseperspectives miss the point. It doesn't matter if the leakedinformation is inflammatory, illegal, interesting or eventrue. The simple fact that confidential information, illegallyobtained, can be used as a weapon against its owner is frighteningenough.

Mark Twain's old adage, “A lie can get halfway around the worldbefore the truth can even get its boots on” has taken ona frightening new relevance in today's world, wherereputations are ruined at the click of a mouse.

The Internet in its early days was a place ofwide-open spaces, attracting risk-takers, peaceful pioneers andfreedom-loving citizens alike who wanted to share information andlearn from each other. Soon, however, that freedom attractedsnake-oil salesmen, cattle rustlers and gunslingers. Pretty soon,any hombre with a gun and a posse could hold a town hostage.Only when the townies fought back with weapons of their own did thewild west get tame.

As trusted advisors, agents and brokers are in a key position tocounsel their customers on how to protect themselves againstsecurity breaches that could lead to a host of problems. And asbusiness owners, agents and brokers must take care to protect theirown confidential information against hackers whose only concern ismaking a name for themselves.

Are any of your customers voicing concerns about being targetedfor document leaks? Are you concerned about your ownbusiness?