Lost iPhone just one headache for Apple security

Wanted - experienced security professional. Must have plan to thwart Chinese counterfeiters, protect secret blueprints from spies and keep workers from leaving super-secret unreleased smartphones behind in bars. A day after a recent report surfaced that an Apple employee had lost a prototype for a new but unreleased iPhone at a Northern California watering hole, two job listings appeared on Apple's website for managers of "new product security."

Such workers would join a team at the $350 billion company that has included ex-FBI agents and other highly trained pros with backgrounds in intelligence and law enforcement. While a private security force might not seem in keeping with its user-friendly image, Apple and other companies in its league need the best protection they can buy, corporate security experts say. And lost iPhones likely don't come near the top of the list of anxieties. "Corporate espionage, that's big money. Billion-dollar money. The paranoia is justified," said Jim Stickley, co-founder of corporate security consulting firm TraceSecurity "Whatever they're trying to do, their competitors want to know. Everybody wants to know."

Apple declined to discuss its security operations in detail with The Associated Press, in keeping with the company's longstanding reputation for secrecy. Nor has the company confirmed the existence of the iPhone 5, the rumored latest model, much less a lost prototype.

But San Francisco police have said that four officers recently went to a home in the city's Bernal Heights neighborhood with two Apple employees, who met with the resident and searched the home for an iPhone prototype. Apple watchers say the company is known for creating many test versions of its new devices before they're released to see how they work in the real world. The reportedly lost iPhone likely would have been far from the only one in circulation.