It’s no secret that high-profile individuals attract highly skilled enemies. Traditional executive protection — black-suited bodyguards, conspicuous and observable — is no longer enough to protect against the more sophisticated plots targeting high-net-worth individuals and organizations. You’ll need layers of different kinds of security.
Protection for the CEO of a Silicon Valley tech company won’t be identical to that of celebrities or their children. The security detail for each will depend on several factors, such as threat level and situation. But one thing these plans might have in common is covert surveillance, also known as protective surveillance.
What is covert surveillance?
Covert surveillance consists of identifying potential threats to the client(s). This is done covertly, meaning that outside observers should not be able to tell that there is even an operation taking place. Covert agents are trained to blend into their environments, whether it’s a cafe, the streets, the workplace, or public event. (“Covert” is not to be confused with low-profile operations, which also feature plain-clothed agents but don’t disguise their presence as security.)
Covert executive protection teams monitor any and all potentially hostile elements in the principal’s surroundings. Advantages lay in not being noticed. For example, if covert protection officers are assigned to secure a big tech conference, these officers will circulate in and around the venue looking for potential threats, such as rogue drone operators. If the hostile actor doesn’t realize they’re being watched, they will take less care in covering their tracks, making it easier for covert agents to track and report these individuals to the proper authorities as well as curating proper risk mitigation strategies for the principal.
What is surveillance detection?
Surveillance detection is a component of covert surveillance. If you believe you might be the subject of hostile surveillance and/or a future attack, a surveillance detection team will first observe to confirm the hostile watchers and then gather basic information about them (location, appearance, actions, time, etc.).
This intelligence is passed on to a counter-surveillance team, which will essentially surveil the hostile surveillance. By following the hostile planners for longer periods of time, the counter-surveillance team can find out who they work for and collect evidence that could lead to arrest.
Despite its secretive nature, covert surveillance is not always superior to other forms of executive protection, such as overt or low-profile protection. At least, not in all situations.
For example, overt protection (the obvious presence of security) might be preferable as a visual deterrent when the principal is making a public appearance. The mere presence of protection often makes others think twice about attacking.
Covert operations, on the other hand, provide no such protection through appearance. Instead, it’s reactive — dependent on actions already taken by a hostile actor. However, there are clear advantages to covert security. If hostile individuals cannot observe your security measures, they cannot plan for them. Thus, the element of secrecy allows you to maintain a tactical advantage.
Some environments, like many Silicon Valley headquarters, require protection but don’t want it to be felt or noticed. This is another situation where covert surveillance comes in handy — it relaxes the atmosphere without relaxing security.
Different situations call for different kinds of protection — or even some combination of covert and overt surveillance. Indeed, overt and covert surveillance often work hand in hand to provide the most thorough coverage.
“What keeps you up at night?” When top-level executives of most successful US-based companies are asked this question, the answer is invariably centered around the wholeness, soundness, and performance of the business; around the business integrity of the company. Modern criminalistics practices and technologies can safeguard the integrity of your Seattle business.
While cyber hacking is an ever-present threat, its only one thin band in the wide spectrum of threats that can befall any company. Threats may come in the form of:
Fraud, embezzlement, diversion
Employee raiding (enticement to gain intellectual property by reverse engineering)
Extortion, coercion, blackmail
Elicitation (gaining proprietary information via subterfuge and implicitly)
Solicitation (gaining proprietary information via recruitment of confederate internal ‘moles’)
Conflict of interest (co-opting internal help to break of non-compete and non-disclosure agreements
Stealing intellectual property such as formulas, databases, algorithms, customer lists and/or budget plans using various types of espionage techniques
Due to the slowing global economy and the rising friction between national trading partners competing in the global marketplace, the frequency and severity of attacks is ramping up. Whether copying entire segments of your business to replace you in the marketplace, or attacking your reputation and brand to pull your company down, attackers are working to take unfair advantage.
A Look at Attack Vectors
Attackers are:
Purposeful – attacking you to achieve a goal
Powerful – whether a company, state-owned enterprise, or agent of a foreign nation, attackers are often well financed with a clear mandate to ruin you
Partially Inside – attacks are almost always made with the help of internal management or staff
Relentless – Almost never attacking just once, but maintaining a steady campaign until the demise of your company or division is achieved
Not deterred by conventional legal remedies or punishments used by most US based firms when confronted with such a situation
Full Criminalistics and Private Security Contracting Solution
Having helped other companies that have been attacked, we know the methods and procedures of engagement used by modern attackers. With a complete risk assessment and deployment of measures to ensure your business continuity, we can help you stop attackers before any damage is done. If you suspect or are troubled by certain things you’re seeing in your business, let’s talk. Premier Risk Solutions knows this terrain very well and uses the very latest in criminalistics to determine criminal profiles and provide real-world solutions.
Fully Applied Criminalistics for Industries in Greater Seattle & Select Cities Around the World
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Managing fear is imperative when navigating a stressful or potentially volatile situation. Our series, “Strong, Safe & True” continues this week with Doug Hicks, a security specialist with Premier Risk Solutions. Hicks talks to us about recognizing fear, managing it, and safely reacting.
In this video, we learn how to define the different types of fear, we learn how it affects us and things we can do to control it. Once you can control it, you can observe, figure out what the opportunities are, and then make the best choice for your safety or someone else’s. Hicks says the last thing you want to do is fall victim to the 4 f’s. Flight, flight, freeze and forget. That means you get scared, you freeze and you forget things you’ve been told or taught. There are actual physiological responses fear causes. You can actually lose motor skills, blood flow can be restricted and your heart rate shoots up. The good news is, through proper practice and training, you can gain control over these things that potentially paralyze.
Check out the video for more on this topic and continue to visit www.premierrisksolutions.com for more video sessions!
It’s safe to say, society as a whole has experienced heightened anxiety over the last year. We have collectively been through a pandemic, watched riots & protests break out, and dealt with a tense political scene. It can take a toll on anyone’s mental health and that includes security personnel. Behavioral psychologist Michael Corcoran says now more than ever, it’s a good idea to check in with not only the people providing security but also the employers hiring them. The goal is to make sure everyone is in a mentally healthy space to be on point.
Corcoran reminds us of the old adage, proper preparation prevents poor performance. It is imperative security companies and employers of security personnel provide proper training.
At Premier Risk Solutions we frequently check in with our employees. We want to make sure they feel protected while protecting your company, employees, or assets. For more on this topic, please watch our latest session of “Strong, Safe & True.”
Here are the Top 5 areas that businesses (employers) should be concerned about with the increase in working-from-home.
1. Breaches of Confidentiality & Proprietary Information
This can be either through an intentional or unintentional means. Intentional: Certain nation-states have spies that have infiltrated employers/companies through legitimate avenues of employment (either direct employment or via a staffing agency). These actors are present to attempt to steal trade secrets (more often than not) to cause economic espionage. This practice has been occurring for years, it is not new, and the FBI estimates that American businesses lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year from trade secret theft. A nosy visitor to one’s residence could also exacerbate this issue if computer screens are left open & unlocked and/or the Wi-Fi utilized is unsecured. Any printed or written documents left out in the open or in an unsecured area are also susceptible.
Unintentional: With sensitive business conversations occurring in the home instead of the office or other off-site locations, the employee’s partner and/or children, household staff, or other transient visitors could inadvertently eavesdrop on a conversation they were not meant to. The information could be mistakenly shared with someone outside of the household in casual conversation and be utilized by that third party for unintended consequences (insider trading, gray market sales, etc).
What to do? Keep work data contained to work computers (do not share devices with anyone else). Ensure employees or contingent staff are utilizing secured Wi-Fi connections at all times; consider supplying a private (personal) hotspot as well as enhancing any level of encryption services that may normally be offered. Have a “clean desk” policy that extends to the work environment at home. Ensure sensitive or confidential documents are shredded properly and not left in regular recycle pickup bins; consider scheduling a private contractor (like Iron Mountain for instance) for weekly pickup for company key personnel.
2. Email & Text Messaging Scams
Phishing: Most of us have received those emails that appear to be from a reputable partner or company we do business with that are veiled (masked) as that entity but they are NOT. They are actually from a bad actor who is seeking your personal identifying information (username, password, or other similar data) and requesting you to take an action often associated with clicking on a link or other document they are sharing in the email. Once you click on that link or open the document they are providing, a virus of some sort is typically installed on your device for their monitoring or tracking of data input (keystrokes) or obtaining copies of what’s on your hard drive.
What to do? The best and easiest way we’ve found to validate or verify the authenticity of communication in email format is to open the header of the email so you can view the email address of the sender. Click on that email address to open it further and it is normally from another sender (they do not match). Delete the email under such circumstances without clicking or opening anything. If you are suspicious of a text message received, contact the known representative of the supposed sending company/entity separately and apart from that communication received (do nothing with the communication until you can verify its authenticity with the actual entity). If you cannot verify its authenticity, delete the text message without clicking on the link provided.
3. Locking Your Doors & Windows
This may sound simple enough but outside of major urban areas there are households that keep doors unlocked (we’ve visited with a couple of them!) whether it be their residence or their personal vehicles. This is the proverbial “low hanging fruit”.
What to do? Be sure to always secure the home and vehicles to keep out prowlers! Roll up windows in cars. For residences that are at ground-level, be sure to secure windows overnight for at least the main/first floor. Encourage employees and contingent staff to do so with gentle reminders as part of an outreach program, company newsletter, company intranet site, or similar.
4. Keeping Staff Feeling Safe
The OSHA General Duty Clause extends the care for employees by the business to when they are on business time, regardless of the physical location of the individual. For example, in the work-from-home environment, if you are on a business call and you slip and fall OSHA has indicated that is a worker’s compensation issue. However, in the same scenario, if you trip over your dog in that same hallway it’s not (unclear as to the exact distinction why one is covered and the other is not but most likely because the dog would most oftentimes not be in the standard workplace). Additionally, society has a certain percentage of its population that participates in cyberbullying on a variety of media platforms. Businesses will need to assist those employees who may be subject to cyberbullying to help them feel supported as well as take steps towards ending it.
What to do? Enact clear policies that have employee buy-in (engage employee representation when developing or enhancing policies). Ensure your company has contracts (or master service agreements) in place with the proper professional resources available on-call for support when it’s needed or to act as a force multiplier to your own internal business support mechanisms.
5. Safety at Home
Following along the lines from the example provided in #4 above where a slip & fall occurs in the home on business time, often providing education and awareness training to staff can help prevent even the smallest of accidents from occurring. Whether it be something as simple as picking up toys left from the kids playing during the daytime to covering stabilizing handrails or enhancing lighting to the exterior to act as a deterrent to the criminal element there is a myriad of such items that can be addressed to help aid the cause.
What to do? Host a “brown bag lunch” speaker series with a professional to allow employees the opportunity to gain more awareness of the issues that each of us can at times be blind to. Doing so also allows the employees to ask questions that they may otherwise not have the opportunity to do or know who to ask.
Social media is everywhere and its effects are profound. That includes effects inside a workforce among employees. In this week’s edition of “Strong, Safe & True” we spoke with behavioral psychologist, Dr. Michael Corcoran on the importance of employers being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to posts.
Surprisingly, social media and security go hand in hand. In a world where people post on a daily basis, sometimes with controversial content, tension can mount. This is true, whether it’s employee to employee having a difference of opinion on social media, or if it’s someone from the outside of the company. Social media presents an opportunity for bullying and harassment, whether the employee is at home or in an office space. It is paramount that an employer gives attention to any concerns and promptly reacts.
For the entire discussion, check out the video and stay tuned for more sessions with security experts!
When you think about a company being able to ensure a safe workplace, the immediate thought typically goes to physical security. However, in these times, there is just as much of an emphasis on emotional security. As an employer it can be tough to navigate. That’s why we sat down with behavioral psychologist, Dr. Michael Corcoran, to talk about adapting to a new level of employee expectations.
There is now more than ever a need for employees to feel heard. They want the assurance that their voice matters and that the company they work for has the same level of commitment to their values. It is especially true in a time of political movements where political conversations are happening more often and in the workplace. Here are a few tips to help a workplace stay safe.
