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

Companies that perform effective tactical and operational triage will be better placed during this crisis and beyond.

From the dawn of humankind, mysterious diseases and illnesses have caused panic and havoc. Fear was often translated and elaborated in many different ways, such as through religion, gods and unjustified punishment.

Fortunately, the human race evolved through the centuries. Science, once treated with scepticism, is now seen as a saviour through its objective, exploration, mapping and understanding of world events, including diseases, and how to prevent and cure them.

“Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words” ― Dante
Alighieri, Inferno Currently, the entire world is shaken to its core with considerable impacts visible in the economy and our lifestyles. In addition, there are the more important invisible marks such as fear, anxiety, stress and uncertainty.

Uncertainty is not created by appearance of the Covid19 virus but in how it is responded to.  Uncertainty has been created from not knowing the full extent of the Covid19’s nature and what type of damage it will cause.

The fear is widespread. Lifestyle changes caused by lockdowns and social distancing create fear, as does the loss of jobs and financial security from the opportunity to earn money, pay mortgages, go for holidays and even get your daily coffee. Then there is the ‘classic’ health fear of being infecting or passing the virus on to a vulnerable person.

This pandemic will pass, humankind will continue. However, it is the responsibility of not just
governments but also corporations, to learn from this and respond to the crisis like emergency
doctors using a triage process. From a corporation’s perspective, this is not about healthcare but the processes, methods and tools available to perform successful triage when a crisis happens. Having a clear triage process instils increased willingness into employees and broader stakeholders to fight the fear, uncertainty and anxiety.

So, what is the Art of Operational and Tactical Triage?
 
Without doubt all leaders are facing a crisis in regard to the impact of Covid-19.

Triage, in the context of the corporate environment, is responding to the situation in real-time. This is managed through on-going monitoring and utilising information management (in house and external) by applying situational awareness, decisiveness and professional expertise in areas such as, economics, risk management, PR, IT and finance.

The purpose of triage is to create a greater good for more people by sorting and evaluating which aspects of the crisis to attend to and which ones to deprioritise. Proactive corporations utilise effective internal and external tools and resources to evaluate each aspect of a crisis and recognises the needs of their employees who are seeking security and certainty.

In moments like these, true leaders emerge and existing ones will excel in their positions by leading by example.

Leaders will recognise the importance triage relating to:

1. Quick and decisive response by identifying most important areas to focus on, enabling corporations and employees to continue their work processes.
2. Identifying Priorities to develop the short-term solutions which will have the biggest impact on corporations and employees. This step requires the team to be unified and use clear thinking that is converted into key objectives for short term solutions
3. Internal communications in plain and simple language is key. Communications need to extend to all employees, regardless of position and should seek opinions and ideas from all -not just executive management.
4. External Communication sets leaders apart. In times of crisis they will step forward and raise their public profile to calmly clarify what the situation is, what goals are to be reached, both from a business continuity and the impact on employees’ perspectives to reduce stress and anxiety. This is the point where you win “hearts and minds”.
5. A Triage ‘War Room’ will provide the ability for continuous adaptations and refinements of situational awareness. It enables fast implementations of the risk management framework and responses to media requests and social media activity etc.

The above five elements depend on balancing the ratio of manpower, logistical and technical
resources with the time and date of execution, intelligence analysis of the situation.

To find out more about how Operational and Tactical Triage can 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

With the rise and impact of eco-terrorism, industry needs to gather more intelligence to help it combat the threats. The Impact has reported how the FBI view eco-terrorism as the biggest domestic terror threat and the wide-ranging disruption caused by the Extinction Rebellion group is just one example of how climate issues can have a big impact.

According to foreignpolicy.com, “Climate activists certainly have a central grievance — a catastrophic, existential grievance that is supported by scientific research. Visit any of the environmentalist websites or blogs and you’ll find an endless run of protests, demos, marches, and planned civil disobedience.”

At Insight Intelligence, we are not saying organisations like Extinction Rebellion are eco-terrorists per se or commenting on the issues surrounding climate change. The point is that someone wishing to damage an organisation’s reputation, production or revenue can use environmental issues as a platform to achieve it.

The potential impact of eco-terrorism is hardest felt on large corporates, especially in the energy, resources and insurance sectors as well as all levels of government. Information spreads more quickly that the fastest bushfire and has no respect for boarders, time zones or even thorough fact-checking.

The activities of eco-terrorists are typically two-fold. Firstly, from a direct perspective like organising demonstrations aimed at crippling commerce. Secondly, high-jacking communications surrounding an event, such as bushfires, and providing disinformation to cause damage.

The Guardian on 12 Jan 2020, ran a report on the Australian bushfire emergency and disinformation campaigns that resulted from it. The article stated, “Two pieces of disinformation stand out from the rest: that an “arson emergency”, rather than climate change, is behind the bushfires, and that “greenies” are preventing firefighters from reducing fuel loads in the Australian bush. Queensland University of Technology senior lecturer Timothy Graham, an expert in social media analysis, took a sample of tweets from the hashtag and analysed them for characteristics typically associated with bots and trolls. His findings suggested a clear “disinformation campaign.”

With the myriad of information and risks facing organisations, one of the major challenges is how to gather, analyse and act on intelligence efficiently. Insight Intelligence has developed a tested process that draws on its military intelligence know-how to help organisations manage their risks more effectively.

We recommend organisations take a three-step approach to industry intelligence gathering:
1. Develop a profile of likely threat sources – individuals, groups and relevant topics to the organisation such as coal mining or plastic packaging usage.
2. Gather information – through human intelligence tracking of individuals, monitoring published media content and social media conversations.
3. Analyse and distil information into a relevant, actionable report.

The organisation is then armed with the understanding of the information to enable it to develop an appropriate response. This may include further tracking of individuals and specific online conversations to discussions with authorities on dealing with planned protests. Typically, much of the action plan is focused around combating disinformation campaigns that threaten to ruin reputations, production, revenue or the broader economy.

In summary, it is important for organisations and governments to separate the risks of eco-terrorism from debates around climate change ideology. The need for industry intelligence gathering is an important risk management and mitigation exercise to respond to threats posed by individuals and groups. The threats are very real, need investigating and an appropriate response developed, to prevent an organisation damaging threat becoming a reality.

The Australian bushfires and the Coronavirus outbreak are currently the talk of every media organisation in the world. Both events have led to demonstrations, challenges, heartache and massive financial losses. A number of people are questioning whether part of the impact has been as a result of eco-terrorists.

The FBI defines eco-terrorism as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.

The new wave of extremists will be greens according to foreignpolicy.com. It discusses how any visit to environmentalist websites or blogs will yield an endless run of protests, demos, marches, and planned civil disobedience.

According to a representative the journalist spoke to from Friends of the Earth, an environmentalist group with chapters across the world, local anti-fracking groups have grown faster than anything he has ever witnessed in the green movement.

Irrespective of whether the current events have been influenced by eco-terrorism, government and corporations alike need to be aware of the potential threats and incorporate them into their risk management plans accordingly.

For over a decade, Insight Intelligence has been providing industry intelligence gathering to supporting corporations in understanding who and what are potential threats and how best to combat them. Governments and corporations need to know how to analyse the mass of information in the media and to prevent damaging events and disinformation that will damage reputations, production and the economy.

Climate change has become a cause célèbre across the globe. The rise of demonstrations and communications about the issue are major risks facing industry and governments. The Intercept reported earlier last year how eco-terrorism had become the FBIs number one domestic terror campaign.

The activities of eco-terrorists are typically two-fold. Firstly, from a direct perspective, for example organising demonstrations aimed at crippling commerce. Secondly, high-jacking communications surrounding an event, such as bushfires, and providing disinformation to cause damage.

The Australian bushfire disasters have seen a clear disinformation campaign according to Queensland University of Technology senior lecturer Timothy Graham. Even the well-respected publication, The Australian, ran an article that falsely claimed 183 arsonists had been arrested in the “current bushfire season” deflecting the arguments about climate change being a central cause.

As an ideology, climate-change is well accepted and so the actions of groups like Extinction Rebellion have strong support from the general public. For an organisation or individual to cause harm under the guise of climate change is comparatively easy. There are obvious activities like campaigning against coal mining as well as more subtle ones such as choosing a time and location for a demonstration that is specifically designed to harm an organisation.

Whilst not strictly in the ‘eco’ space, if the Coronavirus had been a deliberate act, and I’m not saying it was, it has resulted in a truly massive strike against the Chinese economy and the ability of its people to travel internationally. On 3 February 2020, the BBC reported China shares had suffered their biggest fall in four years, with the Shanghai index closing nearly 8% lower as investors weighed the impact of the outbreak.

As climate change activism continues to grow, so does the potential incidence of eco-terrorism. Behind many of the actions of climate change groups there is terrorism lurking. Corporations and governments need to be aware of potential threats and monitor the activities of organisations and individuals to help them develop the appropriate response.

Human Intelligence Applications and Methods

Successful companies win the hearts and minds of customers, shareholders and public opinion. When success starts to fade, it is often down to a lack of competitive business intelligence or intelligence being used more effectively by competitors.

There is a plethora of business information systems, with dashboards aplenty, offering to provide you with useful business analytics. These are all well and good, but with some human intelligence, and a little military know-how, you can gain an even greater competitive edge.
Gaining and keeping that competitive edge over competitors is a constant process, a bit like an endless war. It is hard to win the war if you do not identify and respond to threats by utilising competitive business intelligence methods and tools, in particular human intelligence.

Human Intelligence is an information collection discipline that, contrary to common belief, does not involve clandestine operations. “Intelligence is information that has been collected from open and sensitive sources that result in the production of value-added information available for use by decision-makers”

Information has a value, it can be tangible or intangible. Information can be stored or simply be an idea and every information has a source. The root source of that information is typically a person, not a piece of hardware or software.

Furthermore, we should define the ‘document’ related to the information in terms of its known source, author and validity.

Today’s internet driven world is an open market of information, accessible to anyone at any given moment. You can usually find as much as you’d like to know about someone and they as much about you at the touch of a button.

It is hard to hide information and the electronic collection of open source intelligence (OSINT) is usually combined with some data analysis software. We witness every day how, despite all this information, the global market can be unpredictable and volatile. Most corporations struggle to respond to critical situations and those that prevail have the right information about the product, company, country, economic situation and they know how to use it.

My military intelligence training showed me that gaining a winning competitive edge is not so much about super-fast computers and superior products, but about understanding the power of information and recognising the true value of key pieces.

Most large businesses deploy and utilise a vast amount of hardware and software to analyse open source information. The real question is whether that hardware and software can truly decide about Source reliability and Information Validity. Of course, they struggle and that is the point where the human intelligence discipline comes into its own.

When we talk about competitive business intelligence there are three types strategic, tactical and operational. Needless to say, the terms derive from military intelligence jargon, however some corporations will use more business terminology like forensic intelligence, field intelligence or investigative intelligence.

The three types of intelligence used by corporations, agencies, marketers and polling companies alike can be described as:

Strategic Intelligence – “seeing beyond horizon”, this type of intelligence provides insights which assist in creating responses, policies, procedures, marketing and sales. The prime usage of strategic intelligence is in creating successful long-term corporation objectives.
Operational Intelligence – is an intelligence product which support corporations in preventing fraud, IP theft and criminal activities as well as managing resources in order to achieve operational key objectives.

Tactical Intelligence – this type of intelligence supports immediate corporations’ requirements such as investigations or understanding a competitor’s move in the market which require an immediate response.

By adopting human intelligence as a part of competitive business intelligence in a corporation the process begins and ends with a decision maker. With the help of some military know-how, the human intelligence officer helps guide the decision-making process and highlight the truly key pieces of intelligence.

The result, the organisation is able to build and maintain a competitive advantage and have the winning edge over its competitors.

Mario Bekes
Director, Insight Intelligence

Human Intelligence Applications and Methods

By Mario Bekes, Director Insight Intelligence

Industrial espionage has been in the news again recently with various reports about Huwaei’s activities1. At a time when businesses are investing multiple millions of dollars in data protection systems, are they overlooking some of the most basic forms of intelligence gathering devices – humans?

One way or another, people are often responsible for a loss, often inadvertently. Military intelligence has long used activities, often termed ‘social engineering’, to capture sources of information. These activities have since been adapted by both government intelligence organisations and corporate intelligence.

Social engineering is the art of manipulating people to obtain confidential information such as gathering data about a product, the financial position of the company, future projects and its development. This can be done in person or electronically and activities range from social media engagement, networking with employees, chatting at the gym, posing as a buyer or investor, contacting relatives or friends, looking at discarded documents or recovering data from old IT equipment.

In today’s corporate world you might recognise many of these behaviours as standard networking activities. Indeed, one of the rules for intelligence operatives it is to utilise networking events as much possible in order to create their own sources of information.

This is not to say that all networking type activities are bad, but people need to be aware of the risks. This can be particularly hard to manage when it comes to ex-employees talking about sensitive information.

The weakest link in the security chain is usually 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 blue prints, ideas and products.

At Insight Intelligence, we’ve found companies rarely spend 1% of their IT security budget on policies, procedures, awareness and education to improve people security. Some of the simplest elements of what we term a ‘human firewall’ to implement are:

• Educate people about phishing and other dangerous emails
• Only allow certain people access to sensitive information
• Train employees to be aware of questions at meetings/networking events that may be suspicious
• Reinforce company polices about safeguarding company information (and having a policy in the first place)

A human firewall should be one of your first defences. Just ask Mastercard and Disney. They were lucky that Visa is a good enough corporate citizen not purchase the sensitive information offered by a catering employee about a major deal being discussed by its main competitor, Mastercard2.

No matter how many thousands of dollars are spent on your IT security, these risk management steps, aimed at people, will significantly boost the effectiveness of your human firewall. Thus, helping better protect your assets, the future of your business and the livelihoods of your employees.

1. https://www.wired.com/story/huaweis-many-troubles-bans-alleged-spies-backdoors/
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/22/business/food-worker-is-accused-of-corporate-espionage.html

All Intelligence is information, not all information is intelligence (Lowenthal, 2000)

Trash can be a valuable source of intelligence but how can it be of value and what are the dangers people and businesses need to watch out for? In this article, we look at how to structure the management of intelligence and what you need to know about Trash intelligence.

In today’s business and government environment, using intelligence is vital to make plans for the future and to predict, understand and spot/isolate threats. Intelligence consists of information, both tangible or intangible. These can be anything from blue prints, product information and client details to pricing and even ideas.

A vast amount of money is understandably poured into the IT sector in order safeguard intellectual property and other information. Often there is also an extensive effort directed to social media monitoring to learn who is who, who says what and to whom.

Despite the fact most information resides on clouds, servers and other forms of digital storage, we still print, make notes, and send messages, be it electronically or via paper.

What most companies and other sectors disregard is the Human Intelligence factor which also play a very crucial role in the society we live. One reason for this our focus on digital threats and ignorance about garbage. Garbage can be a very valuable source to people seeking intelligence.

So, what defines this garbage or trash? By trash we mean:

• rubbish or waste, especially domestic refuse
• seemingly worthless or meaningless material or ideas
• unwanted data in a computer’s memory

Purpose of the Intelligence Cycle

The Intelligence Cycle is designed to assist intelligence agencies and analysts to gain useful information that can help identify threats. More sophisticated criminals also use forms of the intelligence cycle, typically for extortion-based crime.

The Intelligence Management Cycle consists of 5 elements:

• Planning (deciding the key objective)
• Collecting (how, when, who, where and why)
• Analysing
• Dissemination
• Recommendations

The Intelligence Cycle differs from Counterintelligence due to its proactive approach, Counterintelligence is reactive in nature. The first step in the Intelligence Management Cycle is Planning. Planning is about deciding the key objective and then the Intelligence Management Cycle moves onto the next step of information collection.

There are a myriad of ways raw intelligence data is collected and then, through the intelligence cycle, it is analysed and converted into useful intelligence and presented to decision makers.

Trash Intelligence

This comes into play during the collection point of the Intelligence Management Cycle.

Typically, intelligence analysts (government, corporate or even criminal) will try to find the most inexpensive and reliable source of information.

Human Intelligence activity consists of different methods, surveillance, countersurveillance, intelligence operatives, informants, technical means, etc, and has one key objective that is to collect intelligence (information) based on the intelligence objective.

A method often overlooked, and one of the most inexpensive forms of intelligence gathering, is trash intelligence, or as we call it “TrashInt”. This is intelligence collection through searching someone else’s garbage or waste.

Most people will see garbage as having no value, hence it being considered trash.

There is a surprising range of things that end up in the trash, including tax file details, invoices, receipts, work documents, blue prints and digital storage devices. Trash intelligence includes digital items too. More than likely, we have all replaced our computer, phone or tablet. All digital devices contain data and this frequently remains on hard drives and devices. Research we carried out a few years ago found 15 out of 52 second-hand hard drives purchased on the open market contained highly sensitive personal data including bank account details, medical information and home addresses.

Trash Intelligence doesn’t only assist intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the profiling of suspects, but it can give criminals a considerable about of very personal or sensitive business data.

Legality of Trash Intelligence

In case you were wondering whether it is legal to search someone’s trash, if the bins are on a private/business premises then it is illegal without a search warrant. This is also true of secure, locked bins. However, once garbage is on a street or in a public premise, it is not illegal.

Conclusion

The most common approach in the protection of information, intellectual property and blue prints etc is through digital security. Clearly this is important, but we must not forget what the weakest link is often humans and what they leave unprotected.

Do not forget the human aspect. Understanding the way intelligence is gathered and used can assist in finding information or keeping it hidden. Not paying attention to your trash can make you extremely vulnerable to criminal activity that could easily find some of your most personal
information and use it against you.