With the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks just a few days away, it might be time for business travelers to reevaluate their own tactics and strategies for keeping themselves – and sensitive company information – safe when they leave home, especially for trips abroad. Although the U.S. homeland has been spared any further major terrorist attacks since 9/11, bombings and mass shootings in cities like London, Madrid, Mumbai and Istanbul serve as reminders that few places in the modern world are safe from extremists who want to use high explosives and automatic weapons to make a point. And terrorism isn’t the only threat to the globe-hopping road warrior: Kidnappings, street crime, civil unrest, accidents, natural disasters and disease could disrupt your personal well-being too; and corporate and even government-sponsored espionage and computer hacking could tap into your sensitive company information.

Many companies rely on corporate security consultants and comprehensive travel insurance policies to protect their employees who travel overseas, and to get them out of harm’s way quickly when necessary. A first step in a security review might be to familiarize yourself with your own company’s strategies and programs for keeping you safe. If you’re not satisfied with what it offers, or if you are self-employed, it might be time to upgrade your own insurance to cover things like evacuation flights from countries where you’d rather not be hospitalized in an emergency, and perhaps even kidnap-and-ransom coverage if you’ll be visiting dodgy areas.

You might think the Middle East poses the greatest security risk for corporate travelers, but a recent survey of 570 corporate security experts, travel managers and other professionals, conducted by International SOS, found that the greatest number of them – 40 percent – cited Latin America as the most dangerous region, followed by the Middle East (31 percent) and Asia (20 percent). What were the greatest dangers for travelers? Some 44 percent ranked terrorism and civil unrest as the number one threat, followed by natural disasters (21 percent), crime/petty theft (17 percent) and kidnapping (16 percent).

Even if your firm provides first-class security programs and insurance, the primary responsibility for your safety and security rests with you. Do you have a good mindset for travel security, or do you tend not even to think about it? According to Christopher Falkenberg, a former Secret Service agent who now runs New York-based consulting firm Insite Security, international business travelers should “work on developing a keen sense of situational awareness.” What does that mean? “Think in advance of what types of emergencies could arise when you travel and have a plan in your head on how to act on that plan. Don’t make assumptions that someone else is providing a safe environment for you, meaning hotels, airlines, trains and so forth. Think about your personal security plan for when things go bad, and what you would do to escape that situation. What do those plans rely upon – like cellular communication, shelter, water source, et cetera, and how would you go about building that kind of redundancy into your travel plans?”

If your firm doesn’t contract with an international security consultant to provide intelligence on threats to travelers, you can easily do your own research through the U.S. State Department. Go to http://travel.state.gov and you’ll find a wealth of information about safe overseas travel. In the lefthand menu, you can find the latest country-specific travel alerts and warnings; or simply select a country from the pull-down menu and see the current security report as compiled and updated by on-site U.S. embassy and consular staff. The “International Travel” section of the website also includes valuable tips for persons traveling and/or living overseas, and a section that explains what the U.S. Government can – and can’t – do for you if you get into trouble in a foreign country.

When you’re overseas, you no longer have to go to the U.S. Embassy to register your presence – you can do that online now, with the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) at https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs/ui/. You only have to sign up once, then add and delete information on your upcoming trips, and State will automatically send you current updates about security and safety issues in those countries. Signing up also makes it easier for embassy staff to contact you during emergencies – a vital link in the event of a major calamity like the Haiti earthquake, after which the State Department evacuated more than 16,000 U.S. citizens.

Selecting a safe place to stay can be a challenge, since there is no agency that rates hotels from a security standpoint, and since the hotels most likely to be considered safe – those of major international chains, many of which are western-based – can sometimes serve as a preferred target for terrorists. A Marriott security executive told a travel conference in Houston recently that in the decade after 9/11, there has been “an exponential rise in attacks against hotels.” As a result, he said his company has taken special precautions at its properties in dangerous countries, like installing a security officer at the entrance, making all persons entering the hotel go through a metal detector, installing shatter-proof windows, inspecting luggage, and checking IDs of everyone parking in the hotel’s lot. Another Marriott exec told the conference that the Marriott in Islamabad, Pakistan, “is as close to a bunker as anyone has ever seen.” You can improve your own safety in a hotel by following some common-sense rules about selecting an appropriate room location and protecting access to your room whether or not you’re in it. Security consultant Chris McGoey has a security checklist for hotel guests at www.crimedoctor.com/hotel.htm.

Besides protecting yourself, you’ll want to make sure any sensitive data or company information that you take along with you is secure as well – not an easy task in these days of hacking and corporate espionage. According to the FBI, corporate espionage is “one of the most serious threats facing the executive traveler. The perpetrator of this type of espionage can be a competitor, opportunist, or foreign intelligence officer.” The agency has put together a comprehensive guide for corporations and executives that details the steps they can take to protect company secrets from predation by foreign interests during business trips. You can find it at http://nebraskainfragard.org/links/CSPvol1_iss2.pdf

For general security purposes, there is a huge inventory of products designed to keep the traveler and his property safe while on the road – everything from TSA-approved luggage locks to money belts, laptop cables, hotel door alarms and many more. You can shop for security at places like www.corporatetravelsafety.com, www.packinglight.net/Security-Products/3015/3014-3015/dept, and http://traveloasis.com/travel-safety.html.

With the critical tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon just days away, many business travelers might be worried about the chance of another mass-casualty event. But government officials and security experts see little likelihood of any large-scale attack.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters that her department has seen “no specific or credible threats involving the 9/11 anniversary.” In its latest terrorism advisory, issued in late July, the U.S. State Department said that in general, there is “an enhanced potential for anti-American violence given the death of Osama Bin Laden,” but State added that its best information indicates the most likely venues for such attacks are in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

“We are safer from large scale terrorist attacks because the terrorist infrastructure that threatened us pre-9/11 is gone,” notes Christopher Falkenberg, a former Secret Service agent and president of Insite Security, a New York City-based firm with scores of corporate clients. However, he adds that a threat does remain from “lone wolves,” i.e., “loosely organized groups of jihadist attackers and loosely organized conspiracies. Those threats are still around, but those attacks are poorly organized, not well supplied and are pathetic.” He cited the so-called Underwear Bomber and the Times Square car bombing attempt as examples.

As for threats to aviation, the Transportation Security Administration noted in a recent blog post that air travel security has been vastly improved over the past decade. TSA itself was created as a response to the attacks, and its government-employed and trained airport screeners now have an average of 3.5 years of experience on the job, compared with just three months for pre-9/11 screeners, who were simply private contract employees. In addition, today’s commercial aircraft have hardened cockpit doors, and many flights carry armed federal air marshals. The Secure Flight program checks every passenger’s name against government watchlists, and all checked bags are screened for explosives. And new full-body scanners currently being deployed to airports nationwide can detect non-metallic as well as metallic threats under a passenger’s clothing. None of this was in place before 9/11. There are also more than 800 TSA-certified teams of bomb-sniffing dogs in place at the nation’s airports – four times as many as before 9/11.

In New York City, both President Obama and former President George W. Bush are expected to attend memorial services at the former World Trade Center site on September 11, so security both in lower Manhattan and around the city will be at peak levels. That includes a 40 percent increase in the number of cops patrolling lower Manhattan, to a total of 670, as well as hundreds of closed-circuit cameras watching the area around Ground Zero. Subways have been an attractive target for terrorist activity in Europe, but in New York City, police have long deployed a variety of strategies to protect trains and their riders, including random bag searches, explosives detection technology, teams of tunnel inspectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and an extensive network of security cameras. Meanwhile, the Associated Press recently revealed after a months-long investigation that the NYPD’s antiterrorist operations include “one of the country’s most aggressive intelligence agencies,” with assistance from the CIA. AP said the NYPD’s terrorist intelligence unit “operates far outside its (i.e. the city’s) borders and targets ethnic communities” by using informers and undercover operatives.

“We’ve made New York City a much more hostile area for attackers,” said Falkenberg. “Law enforcement has played a large role, as has its pool of informants who are critical in mitigating the conspiracies that you hear about on the evening news.” He said New York is “safer because we’ve made it very hard for terrorists to get the equipment to undertake an attack.” Still, in terms of practical cautions, Falkenberg noted that terrorist attacks overseas in recent years focused on “target-rich, highly populated environments. Terrorists target places that are easy to attack with few restrictions and lots of visibility. We advise our clients to think like as terrorist. Avoid finding yourself in vulnerable, unsecured places.” Locations like Times Square and the Empire State Building are unlikely venues for attacks because of their “robust and focused” security, he notes. Terrorists are “much more attracted to less secure places, and those are the areas were you have to be careful.” But in general, Falkenberg said, “If you make a risk/reward calculation, it is highly unlikely for another attack to happen on September 11.”

Still, always remember the Homeland Security mantra: “If you see something, say something.”