Organisations need to act now and prepare for the growing prevalence of economic espionage in Australia and the damage it causes.

To understand what we mean by economic espionage, the FBI (2021) describe it as, “foreign power-sponsored or coordinated intelligence activity” while ASIO (2021) define it as, “Espionage is the theft of Australian information by someone either acting on behalf of a foreign power or intending to provide information to a foreign power which is seeking advantage.”

As evidenced by the word ‘economic’, this form of clandestine behaviour is directed towards the business sector in order to extract information and also to destabilise the market and impact productivity.

In an article by Tom Uren, “China’s cyber espionage surge in Australia”, he clearly describes how Chinese State Security carried out cyber espionage in order to steal technology so a Chinese state-owned company could benefit by building their own airliner.

The first time you become aware that you have been a victim of espionage is often when we find out someone has discovered and utilised information that you have not made public.

Espionage has come a long way since the days of the US/Soviet Cold War with its micro dots, secret cameras and advanced technologies of the mid to late 1900s. Then, as now, the key commodity was information. Espionage has continued to evolve, reaching new heights and dimensions. Although the way different countries behave towards each other has changed over time, it is clear some countries and corporations are utilising sophisticated, high tech methods, along with less glamorous techniques such as analogue human intelligence, to extract information, blueprints and product knowledge or destabilise economies.

A question most corporations often forget to ask or include as part of their risk framework, is around the prevention of economic espionage. This is understandable given the general feeling that this would not affect them and that they are safe behind their firewalls and data encryptions. Cyber espionage is often at the end of the espionage processes; (intelligence or counterintelligence cycle).

One of the most crucial parts of any economic espionage is the human link and human activities. After all, no intelligence agency or corporate sector launches activities against a company purely from seeing a solitary post on social media.

The easiest way to learn, adopt and exploit an organisation’s vulnerabilities is to read and study how an individual employee’s activities on websites and social media. Information about products, blueprints, production or simply ideas always start with humans.

We all have experienced working from home during the COVID crisis with the remoteness and distance from other colleagues, peers and managers it creates. It has become a largely unsupervised work environment to which we can add people’s uncertainty, anxiety, loss of income and so many other elements of changes to our day-to-day life.

The environment this has created plays into the hands of economic espionage perpetrators as a part of hybrid warfare and espionage as well as country, state or company destabilisation.

Without going into depth around intelligence methods, their operations and applications, organisations need to study how economic espionage is carried out. They should concentrate not only on the prevention of hacking and online surveillance by others, but on how to develop a human firewall. After all, humans are the first and last line of defence.

The weakest link in the security chain is often the human who accepts a person or scenario at face value and unwittingly becomes the source of information, from which no IT security measures will be able to protect your blueprints, ideas and products.

Economic espionage is a very real, growing threat. Prevention is the key to combat this espionage by utilising human intelligence methods and training your staff not only on IT security related issues but how to recognise when they may potentially be an unwitting ‘target’ of foreign services or competitor exploitation.

Equally important, is to develop counterintelligence processes and respond to possible threats of economic espionage. A one size fits all solution does not work when it comes to protection from economic espionage, particularly not in moment of crisis. The history of Cold War espionage can teach us valuable lessons that we can apply to today’s modern environment.

 

References:

• https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/what-is-economic-espionage 2 March 2021
• https://www.asio.gov.au/counter-espionage.html 2 March 2021
• https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-cyber-espionage-surge-in-australia-opportunism-not-punishment/ 31 July 2020, Tom Uren

 

 

We know advertisers and politicians try to persuade us to believe a certain viewpoint. The power of communication as a type of warfare is often undervalued. Influencing your ‘enemy’ is a key part of winning any battle. Being able to analyse misinformation has become a critical skill for armies, businesses and citizens alike.

You may remember that prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a slogan, “Winning hearts and minds in the war on terrorism” that used extensively. The slogan is not the weapon in military terms, it doesn’t cause human fatalities and body injuries. But, communication, translated into carefully chosen words, along with military might, cause a deep emotional effect on military personnel and civilians on other side of the front line.

There are so many examples of how leaders, or wannabe leaders, have looked for the most effective ways to influence others through communication (words, public speaking and even subversive methods). One of the first people to document how to influence others was Greek philosopher Socrates, with his ingenious methods of delivering messages to the public.

In order to delve into his students’ view, he would ask them questions until any contradictions were exposed. The Socratic method used typically seeks to ask a series of questions to lead people to think in a certain way. Critical thinking skills are key to effectively resisting this approach. ( https://www.alu.edu/alublog/understanding-the-socratic-method-of-teaching/ 03.02.2021)

The key objective of communication warfare is to infiltrate the minds of large populations, not just particular groups. The endless possibilities of social media make these processes more powerful and effective. We all enjoy the benefits of connecting with people on social media but have you stopped to think how it may have altered your behaviour, mood and decision making.

The work of Nicollo Machiavelli in the 1500s is still relevant when it comes to understanding how communication can be used to influence people. His book ‘The Prince’ has been used for both good and bad for centuries. Machiavelli’s thinking can be summed up by the quotes from the book, “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are” and “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

Words used in communications can be weaponised with emotions which are designed to lead the listener to create distorted conclusions or perceptions on the topic published. You should never take this kind of information lightly. It is important to understand the message and learn how to decode the meaning behind it.

When making decisions based on communications, decision makers need to recognise misinformation and disinformation to understand not only who said what but why it was said and the choice of language used.

Communications professionals usually adjust words and language to suit particular demographics and countries in order to elicit emotional responses from listeners or readers.

Most communication professionals are trying to help people understand the truth. However, when misinformation and disinformation are deliberately used in business communications then the corporate world needs to correctly analyse them.

The power of technology is being used to help create algorithms to categorise and make decisions on information. This has some merit and advantages but a true analysis using human intelligence will provide you with accuracy and source reliability for decision making.

Decision making in corporations and the business world, as well in private life, should be based on the reliability of the source and validity of the information. Relying on social media is definitely not a reliable approach.

With so much talk about misinformation and disinformation being communicated from previously trusted sources, business need to put more resources into the valuable commodity of information and develop critical thinking strategies. 2020 has taught us that many of the solutions to our problems are best found using new ways of thinking and enhanced risk management tools.

We can argue and discuss how life, business and social interactions were in the Pre-COVID world, however, none of this changes the fact that the world we know is over and we need to refocus our activity on positive things.

To enable us to continue to go about our daily lives and enjoy family, health and business, we now have to fully concentrate on things we can control. From a business perspective, it is about how we can assist our clients, peers, employees and contractors.

We all witnessed in pre-COVID world how many gurus and ‘prophets’ there were seeking to charge you to listen to their success stories. We should not be focusing our efforts on them.

So, who am I? Who are you? You are true unsung business heroes, true disciples of success and above all, determined to be on the front foot of life and business. I am a businessman who in my early years experienced the horrors of war and how it effects people. It also proved to me that I was capable of creating my own destiny.

That old way of life and thinking is over, you don’t need prophets, gurus and high paid executives to tell you how to run your business. You now have the full authority and credibility to share your wisdom and knowledge to others on how to stay afloat.

When you wake up in the morning, instead rushing to the internet and being fed bad news about the virus, crime or natural disasters, do yourself a favour. Wake up and say to yourself, “Today will be a great day” followed by putting on the biggest smile and then ask yourself, “what do I truly want from life” – after all you may be the only person who will never lie to you!

Say hello to your family, ask them how they are. Say hello to your neighbours, whether you like them or not. Say hello, they will feel alive or perhaps they will tell you to FO, who knows.

Come into your office, or have your team zoom call, and say hello to your peers and employees. Maybe buy them an occasional coffee if you are together in person. Not because you are a charity but to show gratitude. Why are you doing this? To show respect, kindness and motivate your employees. They will appreciate it, trust me.

Reply to your emails, don’t keep your clients and suppliers waiting. Pick up the phone and call few clients and ask them how they are. They will welcome it. Don’t ask them for work, just smile and ask them how their day is.

Open that journal of yours with ideas, concepts and blueprints. Choose some to follow through. Sit next to employees and ask them what they are doing today and how you can help them. Then relax, you are already showing leadership qualities and displaying courage that no gurus can teach you.

Try to feed that starving feeling for business development inside of you through networking. Be targeted, chose whom you spend time with, as not all introductions are made equal.

Take the time to go to gym, see your GP to get a for blood exam and to check your blood pressure. Show up to our meetings feeling healthy. Repeat this action so often that it becomes a discipline. The healthy leader in you will project to clients that you are present, reliable and dedicated. Ask for and help instill this into your employees.

No one can promise you what your tomorrow will be like. Work on creating your own legacy and empire. Write books, diaries, blogs and share your wisdom or whatever you fancy, but do it so that others can learn from your mistakes.

Life is risky, after all, it is so risky that no one will live forever. Many of your old risk management processes are now more or less useless and you need to create new ones. Adapt to this crisis and the constantly changing situation. Do not collect your information from social media and sensationalist websites, as these will sidetrack you. Instead use local newspapers, coffee shops and conversations with real people. Do not rely on social media influencers and their ‘awesome’ tips.

Life is about living and for you to keep winning, you need to minimise strategic thinking. Instead, take a tactical approach by focusing on your local market and things you can control. You are clearly winning and when you win, your clients win, your employees get paid and everyone will see you as a person they can rely on.

Deliver services and goods that you know you can deliver using logistics that you can see and feel. That may sound obvious but when you challenge yourself, you may not be doing this.

While in combat, I was taught to use my senses and intuition along with my formal training, and business is all about what you can see, touch, smell, hear or taste. That’s what this new COVID business model is all about. Welcome to the new world.

Corporations strive to be successful in their chosen markets. Trying to win the hearts and minds of consumers is a relentless, on-going battle that can be both costly and exhausting. Organisations can learn from military strategists and use information to develop successful economic strategies.

There are plenty of examples from military strategists past and present. Many have a similar theme – fight wars on your own terms. Do not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to achieve a single victory that only results in creating a vengeful enemy.

A little-known historic example of this comes from Queen Elizabeth I and her battle with Spain. The full extent of her strategy is often overlooked and not applied as much as it should be.

The Queen and her kingdom had been devastated by civil war. The treasury just did not have enough money, despite her idea to create a prosperous kingdom.

At the same time, King Phillip II of Spain had been threatening to invade. In 1588, 130 ships formed the Spanish Armada and set sail to try and defeat the far smaller English army and navy.

So how did Queen Elizabeth achieve victory?

Most accounts of the English victory focus on the speed of the ships and the exploits of Sir Francis Drake. However, Elizabeth I also had a secret weapon in Sir Francis Walsingham, who was popularly remembered as her "spymaster". He built up an ongoing spy network by utilising the merchant fleet and passing information back to England about intentions and preparedness of Spanish Armada.

Queen Elizabeth I also utilised a new type of warfare, economic. She knew that Spain had a weak economy and that shipping routes between Spain and her Colonies had been successfully compromised by Sir Francis Drake.

 

Translating this to today’s business environment, it is clear the size of a competitor does not always mean they are in a stronger position. Strength can be gained through knowing more about a competitor’s intentions, finances, in-house morale, centralised control and other important elements.

Knowing your limits as organisation is the imperative, regardless how wealthy and logistically strong you are. History has proved that less financially viable opponents are more likely to improvise and utilise fewer logistics and spend less money to prevail in the market.

In today fast-moving world, one thing that is accessible to everyone is information, regardless of how strong you are as a corporation. Furthermore, the reduction in physical travelling and increased use of video link platforms, make the perfect scenario for intelligence operatives. The source of information is no longer inside corporate offices but residing with individuals. This creates additional risks that are hard to manage within a traditional risk management matrix.

Corporations should choose carefully which competitors and markets they are seeking to dominate as there will inevitably be some losses along the way.

The true danger lies with miscalculation and misinterpretation of the available intelligence – or
valuable information. Where it is not possible to verify the source and validity of information, it is quite likely the information can be part of a planned deception by a competitor to sidetrack you and get you to ‘fight’ them on their own terms.

In the world where information is power, success can come from applying and utilising investigative intelligence with human intelligence methods and applications to help prepare the organisation for the battles and counterattacks that lie ahead. Creating an intelligence and counter-intelligence cycle through harnessing human intelligence will assist in the execution of winning corporate strategies.

Western and communist countries have had very different approaches to intelligence gathering over the years. The fundamental difference is that the communist approach starts with childhood education and intelligence service secrecy. Western countries on the other hand are far more open in how its population is educated and the plans and objectives of their intelligence services.

It is useful to understand the communist approach and how it has evolved in today’s environment to gain a deeper understanding of how to respond to organisation and State activity from communist countries.

During the Cold War, Eastern Bloc countries were infamous for their strong, and fear-inducing secret police and intelligence services. They were all incredibly ‘successful’ in their endeavours to keep control of their citizens and combat other states. An example of their strength can be seen by the fact that even the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was able to be placed under arrest by the military and intelligence service (History, 2009).

It is heavily misunderstood by the West how communist countries used and deployed intelligence services during Cold War and how remaining communist regimes are still utilising intelligence and secret police agencies.

Having grown up in a communist country, I have seen first-hand how their intelligence effectiveness starts with childhood education.

 

Childhood and Intelligence

From the moment you are born in communist regime, everyone is exposed to the communist utopian ideology and socialist way of life. This is based on everyone being equal and working together for the greater good of the State.

As a child, you are exposed on daily basis to stories of the sacrifices and struggles of previous generations in creating the State, fighting for independence and why is important to report things, even as a child, to governing bodies.

Teenage education has even more emphasis on revolution, struggles and sacrifices with the difference that the indoctrination is on a new level – recruitment. This is aimed at recruiting people to attend military school, police courses and for further educating those serving in the army.

By adulthood, people know and thrive on supporting the State through the military, police and other intelligence services.

This approach means there is less need for military/intelligence services to control people as they control each other. In the old Eastern Bloc, hundreds of thousands become voluntarily informants, because of the benefits and protection they offered – not just through fear.

Analogue Intelligence

Information gathering was strongly based on ‘analogue intelligence’. Hearsay is incredibly important. Despite a vast majority of people being unhappy with communist State politics, they still choose to whisper any dissent and the established modus operandi is that neighbour’s spy on each other.

Through this vast network of informants, domestic intelligence services will arrest and interrogate people until useful intelligence is provided. The fear factor this creates adds to the success of the communist state in controlling its citizens.

State Control of Intelligence Services

Intelligence services in communist states are controlled by the politburo or high party echelons. By contrast, in Western countries boards, parliaments and ombudsmen have control. Communist regime intelligence services establish an invisible network that checks on each other. For example, in Romania, Securitate was checking on the military and vice versa. In the old Soviet Union, the GRU checked on the KGB, particularly regarding overseas operations, and similarly the Stasi monitored the East German Police.

The mixture of ideology, political influence and childhood education, along with expertise in the art of intelligence, made communist intelligence services brutally efficient.

Communist secret police and intelligence services were highly successful in penetrating and creating networks of informants who as well people actively support the success of communist regimes.
Many people think it was citizens revolting against oppression that led to the destruction of the Eastern Bloc. However, economic failures had a major impact ((Investopedia, 2020). It would be interesting to see what the world would have looked like if the Soviet Union, in particular, had adapted and maintained a strong economy.

Existing communist regimes can be applauded for how they have effectively learnt from the past and adapted to become more robust in ways Western countries have not. Those who survived the 1980’s, have learnt how to add digital to analogue intelligence and expand their hybrid warfare capabilities.
Western organisations and governments would do well to fully understand the depth of communist ideology as part of their strategies, when looking to partner with, seek investment from and even combat, the remaining communist regimes.

As a parting thought, since the fall of the Berlin wall and various subsequent regime changes, the world has seen an influx of thousands of intelligence operatives without an employer. Have you ever stopped to think what they are doing now?

Taking into consideration of the late 80’s with fall of Berlin Wall as a hallmark of dissolving Eastern Block (Warsaw Pact) with latest bastion of that block, removal of Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu (Investopedia, 2020) and in his removal citizens and military joined forces however Securitate ( security intelligence police apparatus ) mountain defence and prolonged fight in order to crush revolution not only to survive or save Ceausescu.

Even Eastern Block fall into pieces SSSR as a backbone of Eastern Block standing firm and defiant, however less than two years of removal of Ceausescu the leader of SSSR, Mikhail Gorbachev was under house arrest from 18th August 1991

The iconic image of the Man vs Tank taken on the morning of 5 June 1989 in Tiananmen Square, Beijing is cited as a major catalyst to the subsequent profound impacts of social media. This was an image that led to media organisations openly supporting a revolution by oppressed people.

Social media is now central to most people’s lives and its influence is pervasive. The platforms are being used by numerous different organisations from state intelligence services to individual celebrities disrupting individuals, organisations and governments. It has now become incredibly important that we apply critical thinking to our comprehension of information.

The UK report released on 21 July 2020 detailing how Russia weaponised information to interfere with British politics is a current case in point (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/world/europe/uk-russia-report.html ).

1989 saw other significant people’s uprisings including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the more violent uprising against Nicole Ceausescu in Romania before digitalised information became a key factor in the Serbian overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

The Chinese People Army learnt two important lessons from Tiananmen Square. Firstly, to more tightly control the export of media and access of information about mainland China – something Western Society did not follow. Secondly, the importance of cosmetics. The image showed old military equipment and poorly dressed soldiers led to upgrades to better portray the desired image of a strong country.

From the 2000’s there have been several uprisings including Iraq 2003 “win the hearts and minds” strategy and the 2010 Arab Spring Uprising. Social media was at the centre of these, along with a few failed uprisings.

The use of social media to influence these and more recent events has been well documented. The COVID-19 experience has further heightened attempts to publish mis/disinformation and other material designed to influence people’s thinking.

In fact, we believe that we are in the middle of a new cold war and every individual is a playing a part. Many of us do not know or understand what is going on. Few people are processing the information with the right frame of reference which is creating vulnerability. Perception of reality is now more easily moulded to suit the objectives of the infiltrators.

The fishbowl

Imagine our life in today’s information ecosystem as fish living in a fishbowl, that nobody ever cleans and is constantly being added to. Somebody, an organisation looking to manipulate behaviour, puts some chemicals in that changes the way we think. Then, someone else puts a different mix of chemicals that changes things again. The clandestine nature of the hybrid warfare now being used is that unless someone tells you, you are in a fishbowl and that you are breathing in chemicals you would be none the wiser.

This is a real and dangerous situation made worse by the current spate of lockdowns across the world. With more limited interactions with other forms of information, everyone is immersing themselves in various forms of social media. This is making the potential for being influenced by a social engineering campaign much greater.

From an academic perspective, this danger can be explained by the ‘Regime of Truth’. The concept is based on so called Agents of Truth. We have a series of people who we trust to provide information. Traditionally, these were people like scientists, politicians and journalists. We are finding these sources becoming increasingly discredited, as evidenced by the recent anti-WHO campaign, making it harder for individuals to know what to trust and consequently easier for them to be influenced.

People are individualising truth, deciding for themselves what to believe, often based on what is cool, appealing, or fun. The cocktail of populism coupled with this individualisation of truth is dangerously leading people to pick and choose who to trust arbitrarily.

Most corporations and governments will utilise different sectors, companies and departments to filter social media for purpose of gathering data and informing citizens what is going on. However, the flip side of this is that heavily relying on social media and data collection is useless if information has not been verified without using human intelligence methods to confirm reliability and validity along with cyber sociology.

After all, it is not just important WHO says what, but WHAT has been said and WHAT the intended response is. Effectively determining this will help organisations continue without major disruption and governments to more easily pass verified information to their citizens.

How should organisations respond?

People need to become more self-conscious about their thinking. Where possible, counter narratives need to be employed by organisations to combat any damaging misinformation or fake news. Ideally, people need to be encouraged to take more of the information they find on social media with a grain of salt and look for further validation.

People need to become more resilient, apply critical thinking, demonstrate curiosity and have an investigative interest. Who said what, what has been said and why?

Corporate entities need to have their workforce trained in these skills or risk losing their workforce’s support or have them do something damaging.

This may all sound over dramatic but the discrediting of the World Health Organisation, the fake news proclamations around President Trump, discussions on state-sponsored cyber terrorism in Australia and the large amount of misinformation around COVID-19 should make all organisations and individuals think twice.

Ask yourself, what information do you trust and how often you really think about the validity of who has said what? Becoming more resilient and using critical thinking are our greatest weapons to preventing major civil unrest or worse.

“Separate to live, unite to fight”
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821

One glance at social media today will yield countless claims from people with purported privileged knowledge of, or control over, the silver bullet for success. Snake oil solutions though they may be, they are useful as demonstrative exemplars of broader tendencies found in legitimate and illegitimate strategies alike: Namely, the vast majority have some form of blueprint to which one must rigidly adhere in order to achieve success. One of the key lessons to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic has been instructive in the folly of strategic fragility: The more prescriptive the strategy, the bigger the challenge when the inevitable curve ball comes along.

At the beginning of 2020, most organisations had some kind of plan to help them achieve their objectives, dominate their market, and to generally perform strategic manoeuvres such as acquisitions, mergers, marketing campaigns etc. With a mind to caution, such plans are typically executed only after they have first been ‘endorsed’ by financial risk managers and forecasters.

Fast forward a few months and the era of purchased assurance/confidence has been replaced with the conditions of the pandemic, which has created chaos out of what were once relatively stable markets. The only certainty is uncertainty, and most, if not all, organisations have struggled to respond in a coherent and proactive way.

Dogmatically or ritualistically (i.e., uncritically) following conventional industry ‘best practices’ can no longer be assumed to be a reliable source for the same assurances after which they are named. On the contrary, following them can now instead put organisations at more risks than if they had instead chosen to develop their own path.

The secret to success may now be found in the development of strategies based on embracing or, to put a paradoxical spin on it, ‘control’ chaos. As intelligence experts, we believe there are a number of things corporate entities, governments and NGOs can learn from military strategies that will help improve survivability during this tumultuous time.

‘Controlled chaos strategy’ brings together elements from human intelligence, cyber sociology, military counterintelligence and a myriad of other disciplines to build an operational framework that organisations can use to reconfigure themselves to achieve continuous and sustainable positive outcomes, even in the midst of a pandemic.

So, how does controlled chaos strategy work? There are three steps:

1.  Don’t follow the herd – if you take the same approaches to collating and analysing information, decision making and defensive strategies (e.g. cyber defence infrastructure and solutions) as everyone else, you not only lose your competitive edge in the market, the rigidity of your organisation becomes as fragile as everyone else’s, and will likely suffer a shared fate and shatter when hit with a curve ball.
2. Develop multiple strategies – rather than focusing exclusively on one blueprint for success than can be thrown off track, you must have multiple and even redundant strategies. These should all be developed and maintained in parallel, and be prepared for actioning at any time.
3. Create operational groups – Instead of a centralised organisational structure, break your personnel into semi-autonomous groups so that they are allowed to operate with a large degree of independence. These groups should obviously be aligned with the strategic direction of the company, but at an operational level should be organised around the unique strengths and beliefs of a group’s participants instead of the rigid top-down dictate of executive management. Organisational leadership is then free to concentrate on achieving executive outcomes and steering strategic direction rather than interfering with everyday operational tactics, which are instead left to individual group leaderships.

This concept draws from the military strategy of “Auftragstaktik “. Known as a cellular organisational structure, individual cells (or teams) within an organisation carry out the overall strategy of the organisation in their own ways. – organised around a network of self-managing teams/autonomous business units has unique affordances particularly well-suited to operating in unstable or uncertain environments.. If something happens which damages or disables the operational capacity of one cell, then the agility of a cellular organisational structure ensures that the impact is compartmentalised to just one business unit instead of the whole company. In this way, other operational groups are able to maintain momentum and the overall resilience of the organisation by operating in a multitude of different ways to deliver the overarching corporate strategy.

It may be a term you have not heard before, and one that sounds more relevant to the military, but hybrid warfare is being used by a variety of organisations and governments to achieve different objectives.

To see how this is relevant to you, ask yourself three questions:

1. Think about the implications and learnings of COVID from a strategic risk perspective. How much broader and far reaching are the issues compared to your traditional risk models?
2. You likely spend a lot of resources on cyber protection, but how much time do you devote to looking at other ways your organisation can be attacked – challenges of access to goods, markets, and offices for example?
3. What does the level of uncertainty do to your ability to plan and make effective decisions?

The current situation has shown us that Corporate Risk Management needs to review its failings and scope to create better frameworks to protect organisations going forward.

So, what is hybrid warfare and how is it relevant? It is a mix of conventional and non-conventional methods that cross political, economic, and social boundaries. The latest cyber-attacks, diplomatic provocations, disruptions in trade and economic duress are some of the examples of hybrid warfare.

Aren’t all these areas just a matter for governments and security agencies? Far from it, organisations are currently being challenged by trade tariffs, taxes, supply chain controls, geopolitical instability, increasing insurance costs and other activities that impact the organisation’s ability to carry out its operations.

The various waves of political activism occurring are creating potential risks to organisations from their competitors. By reacting in certain ways, an organisation can ‘interfere’ with its competitors. For example, an insurer refusing to cover coal mines puts pressure on its competitors – how they choose to respond has a bearing on their own business operations and reputations.

Most of all, it is about information. Information is the key element of success or failure. Hybrid warfare makes use of information in a wide variety of ways, as a part of the intelligence cycle, through psychological warfare, manipulation and disinformation on all levels and platforms, from broadcast and social media to how politicians describe key issues.

As Major General Marcus Thompson from the Australian Information Warfare Division puts it, information warfare is, “The contest for the provision and assurance of information to support friendly decision-making, whilst denying and degrading that of adversaries.”

Human intelligence expert with a military and diplomatic security intelligence background, Mario Bekes along with Dr Patrick Scolyer-Gray a Research Fellow in Cyber Security and Decision Making at Deakin University are discussing the various forms of hybrid warfare in a webinar on the 8th of July 2020.

The far-reaching discussions will look at various types of hybrid warfare from information and narrative warfare to lawfare. It aims to challenge organisations to open their minds to non-traditional risks, how they manifest themselves and the uncertainty that is being created amongst the population. This is then applied to developing corporate risk management frameworks for the future and how to manage the information flow.

How can organisations be better prepared for hybrid types of warfare? Can we better utilise human intelligence along with cyber intelligence sociology and psychology to reduce future impacts of crises?

We need to remove the shroud of military terminology and focus on information flows in this increasingly connected world and how to provide effective risk management frameworks that are adaptable, agile and create resilience.

Summary

Regardless of the cause, Corporate Risk Management is failing in the COVID-19 crisis and corporations need to be better prepared for Hybrid Warfare.

Hybrid Warfare is a mix of conventional and, non-conventional methods that cross political, economic and social boundaries. These methods include, misinformation, investment strategies, corporate intelligence gathering and cyber infiltrations.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, most governments and countries have seen obstacles preventing them from functioning fully, with corporations around the world suffering from immediate disruption. Big picture thinking could have predicted the challenges created by a global virus pandemic. After all, this is the seventh coronavirus outbreak stemming from a similar part of the world.

Risk Management Frameworks are designed to expect disruptions, usually calculating risk from geostrategic, political and economic perspectives. Corporations, however, were never prepared for a crisis like the COVID-19 and Hybrid Warfare. When Hybrid Warfare is considered by corporations, the focus is largely on ‘cyber risk’.

“By leveraging state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Chinese technology companies and partnerships with foreign partners—including Western universities—the CCP is building a massive and global data-collection ecosystem.” Engineering global consent, The Chinese Communist Party’s data-driven power expansion Policy brief Report No. 21/2019Dr Samantha Hoffman pp3

China is a communist country, and its citizens are continually educated with a strong patriotic ideology. It is dangerous to underestimate a strong ideology and politically motivated citizens, who will often choose to act for the greater good of their country rather than just their organisation.

For risk managers, protecting information is paramount. Adopting creative thinking to include scenarios such as the COVID-19 pandemic and understanding how to utilise human intelligence, rather than relying on Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT), Traditional Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, will highly benefit future corporate strategies and Risk Management Frameworks.

One of the tragedies for many Western corporations is that most of the strategies for preparing and responding to major risks are publicly available for competitors to analyse. The same cannot be said for Chinese corporations and the Chinese government in general.

Why has Corporate Risk Management failed to respond to the COVID-19 and Hybrid Warfare?

Corporations have been unable to recognise the danger and potential of Hybrid Warfare because their risk management processes were formed without a clear understanding for what Hybrid Warfare is.

The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a clear example of Hybrid Warfare and thus, the need for comprehensive risk management both now and into the future. There is a massive debate and range of opinions about the COVID-19 and how the ensuing crisis has transcended social, political and economic borders. Certainly, national economies everywhere are reaching breaking point. Some are failing. The reasons for the current pandemic can only be speculative and ultimately academic. What we do know for sure, is that nations and corporations are being attacked on several fronts, including Psychological Warfare, Legal Warfare, Financial Warfare, and Cyber Warfare.

We may never know the exact truth about how and why the COVID-19 pandemic started.

History tells us pandemics are as old as time. So too is manipulation and propaganda.

“To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the pandemic’s nickname, “Spanish flu” (Wikipedia 25/03/20)

In the past few months, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, has caused a global COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in the sudden isolation of a large proportion of the world’s population, thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of infected individuals. These numbers are still rising rapidly.

Concurrently with this pandemic, there is ebbing fear and anxiety amongst the population. Regardless of social status, wealth, race and religion, we are all facing the possibility of infection, job loss, and adverse changes to our lifestyle. Curfews and lockdowns are now common across the world, in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.

Most governments are declaring ‘war’. This is not a typical war, that uses brute force with conventional weapons, but a war against an invisible enemy, the COVID-19. This war requires tremendous sacrifice, both by governments and their citizens. It requires the acceptance of inevitable economic downturn and that fear from uncertainty will exist amongst the people.

It is now up to the world governments, health professionals, historians, and many others to look past the chaos of this pandemic, in an endeavour to learn how, exactly, it started.

The COVID-19 enemy and Hybrid Warfare?

In 1999 Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui published manifesto and translated into English with the not so accurate title “Unrestricted Warfare” (Chao Xian Zhan, literally “War Beyond Rules”) Small Wars Foundation 2010 pp 2.

In a nutshell, this book, War Beyond Rules, was adopted along with the “Peaceful Rise” doctrine by circles of Chinese officials. This prompted China to develop a model of “Three Warfares”. This is basically explained as the reinforcement of political work for media, psychological, legal, financial, and cyber warfare elements, as well as overseas investment. Together these can be defined as Hybrid Warfare.

Terra Incognita – the COVID-19 and Corporate Response to Hybrid Warfare

The world is changing every day in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments are making decisions in an effort to keep the sick alive, support the economy and provide certainty for citizens.

While Western governments are pumping billions of dollars into their economies, businesses are still suffering. This is not because of inferior products or services, but because the global and domestic markets are freezing with uncertainty.

Forecasts from economic analysts are very grim. We will all experience something new, something we were not prepared for at all.

Hybrid Warfare on the world stage is going to continue and probably increase between corporations who are looking for market dominance. In saying this, most businesses are still operating on an ‘ad-hoc’ modus operandi.

Hybrid Warfare is not new. We experience it in the form of misinformation, disinformation and the non-kinetic suppression of activities.

The lesson corporations need to learn is that a new risk management process should be implemented and activated as soon as possible, without waiting for the COVID-19 pandemic to be over.

There are two simple reasons for this, certainty and security. Particularly for employees. They have worked hard to put businesses in the positions they were before the start of this crisis.

When we talk about a risk management process and Hybrid Warfare, it is important to distinguish the key elements of Hybrid Warfare from traditional Warfare such as armed conflict, weaponry, guerrilla Warfare etc.

We talk about Soft Power, Economic Power and Strategic Culture. These are the “Three Warfares” and need to be included in a risk management process, taking into consideration:

• Cyber protection, which includes a corporation’s digital ‘cloud’ and looking at what country your information resides in (e.g. Titan Rain 2003, which crippled the USA and UK government agencies).
• Information Risk Management to prevent and protect from misinformation, disinformation, and theft of information.
• Geostrategic positioning of businesses and plants, suppliers, transport, and communications between all entities. Managing your supply chain has never been more important, or complex.
• Adopting Human Intelligence analysis as part of your risk management processes with the emphasis on strategic intelligence analysis.
• Prevention of manipulation, deception, coercion, and all other elements of sabotage, subversive activities etc. This becomes a greater challenge in times of hardship and vulnerability.
• Having an in-house, tailored PR team and War Room. Do not outsource everything.
• Reducing SOCMINT (social media intelligence) as a source of information, instead using human intelligence for data collection and as a means of managing the intelligence and counterintelligence cycle.

By incorporating these activities into their Risk Management Frameworks, corporations will be equipped to prevent public, employee and supplier mistrust in their capabilities, thus, safeguarding the confidence of all stakeholders during any crises.

The global economic landscape is likely to change significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Forward-thinking corporations need to act now to ensure they are part of the future and not consigned to the past.

To find out more about how a new Risk Framework can be established to protect you from Hybrid Warfare, contact corporate human and business intelligence expert, Mario Bekes.
Mario Bekes (Managing Director, Insight Intelligence Group) is an intelligence and investigative professional, with a wide range of experience spanning military and civil intelligence in Europe and Australia.

A natural leader, public speaker, published book author, relationship-builder and facilitator with experience in investigative techniques, interrogation methods and corporate human and competitive business intelligence, Mario is driven by providing results.

Over the past 30 years Mario has conducted numerous types of investigations within government sectors including defence and foreign affairs departments, as well as the corporate world. Mario has applied his knowledge, expertise, academic research and training in investigative intelligence and investigative interviewing techniques across Australia and internationally.

mariobekes.local

ABOUT INSIGHT INTELLIGENCE GROUP
Insight Intelligence Group is a privately-owned Australian company founded in 2003. We
provide both corporate and private investigative, surveillance and intelligence solutions.

Insight Intelligence Group has the scale to cover investigation and intelligence needs
nationally and operates like a boutique firm focusing on providing the highest standard of
tailored and personalised services to our clients.

All our staff are qualified, highly trained and experienced in investigative, surveillance and
intelligence solutions. Our experience and the manner in which we engage with our clients
enables us to effectively deliver on your needs.

www.insightintelligence.com.au

Covid-19 has created an unprecedented chain of events. Hindsight will no doubt show that much of them could have been avoided from the start. Two major issues revolve around fear. Fear of possible infection and fear of the economic uncertainty of what life will be like when the health crisis is over.

The current war is not just against the Covid-19 virus but also against a psychological virus – the impact on people’s thoughts, perceptions and actions But let’s back up a little bit. There is a history of chemical and biological warfare, better described as physical and “psychological warfare”. Throughout history, nations across the globe fought the wars for many different reasons, including economical, religion and enforcing dictatorships or domination over a region.

The First World War saw some of the first instances of large-scale chemical warfare. They were used to try and win the war, break stalemates but as well as create havoc, uncertainty and fear amongst soldiers and the broader civilian population.

Chemical weapons used in World War One killed 90-100 thousand soldiers and injured 1.3 million more. (Source: sciencehistory.org)

World War One ended, but the human fight for survival did not. Spanish Flu started in late 1917
spreading across the globe between 1918 and 1920. It infected a staggering quarter of the world’s population and killing between 17-50 million people. (Source: Wikipedia)

Fear was real and present, in the war and the outbreak of Spanish Influenza, however life continued after pandemic in 1918. Records show that, even then, governments lied and hid real data regarding the influenza impact, primarily to maintain the strong position on the world stage of European countries.

In those days the public was less educated and did not have access to the same level of media we do now. This meant stories about the scale of the flu’s impact where largely seen as hearsay. Following the September 11 terror attacks, another terror fear beset the American public in the form of Anthrax. Anthrax has been used by several terrorists and the Germans contaminated livestock with it in World War One. Letters containing the poison killed five people in the US and panicked thousands.

When information about Covid19 was first available to the public, few took it seriously, including the Western media. It was just news about a new virus and that the Chinese government was working on containment and suppressing the infection rate in people. The number of infections and deaths have become the subject of daily news stories. However, the psychological impact on the general population is yet to be felt.

Governments around the globe are united in stopping and eradicating this virus, however there is no timeline as to when this unprecedented response will stop. One thing is certain, with the daily bombardment of ‘news’ from legitimate and less legitimate sources, along with massive amounts of social media comment from sources with no real understanding of Covid19 are flooding the general public.

Government around the world are putting extreme measures in place to stop the virus and flatten its infection curve. The spread of the psychological virus continues, 24 hours a day, largely unchecked. This is nothing less than psychological warfare that is creating more fear and uncertainty for the general public.

Fear is contagious and the large volume of unchecked, non-validated information creates an
immense psychological impact which is equal to psychological warfare).

Large corporations as well as governments are impacted by this psychological virus. They should take reasonable steps and implement a risk management framework aimed at reducing the impact of fear amongst employees who represent general population and then learn from this experience.

Being able to understand and analyse sources of information is the first step to effectively managing the psychological impact of the virus. You then need to recognise evaluated from unevaluated information that, when coupled with exercising strategic intelligence methods, improves decision making. Carrying out these exercises at regular “war rooms” by implementing key intelligence needs will benefit governments and corporations, their employees, suppliers and stakeholders.

Being part of flattening the psychological virus curve, is as important as flattening the Covid-19
infection curve itself. It can make the difference between an individual, organisation, government or country being able to come through the current crisis strongly and one that struggles.

To find out more about how human intelligence information and analysis can help manage the
uncertainty of a crisis including the current Covid-19 period, contact corporate human and business intelligence expert, Mario Bekes.

 

Mario Bekes (Managing Director, Insight Intelligence Group) is an intelligence and investigative professional, with a wide range of experience spanning military and civil intelligence in Europe and Australia.

A natural leader, public speaker, published book author, relationship-builder and facilitator with
experience in investigative techniques, interrogation methods and corporate human and competitive
business intelligence, Mario is driven by providing results.

Over the past 30 years Mario has conducted numerous types of investigations within government
sectors including defence and foreign affairs departments, as well as the corporate world. Mario has applied his knowledge, expertise, academic research and training in investigative intelligence and investigative interviewing techniques across Australia and internationally.

ABOUT INSIGHT INTELLIGENCE GROUP
Insight Intelligence Group is a privately-owned Australian company founded in 2003. We
provide both corporate and private investigative, surveillance and intelligence solutions.

Insight Intelligence Group has the scale to cover investigation and intelligence needs
nationally and operates like a boutique firm focusing on providing the highest standard of
tailored and personalised services to our clients.

All our staff are qualified, highly trained and experienced in investigative, surveillance and
intelligence solutions. Our experience and the manner in which we engage with our clients
enables us to effectively deliver on your needs.

www.insightintelligence.com.au