A White Paper Collaboration from Ontic Technologies & Concentric Advisors Introduction In recent years, organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to non-profits, from governments to family offices, have all been forced to grapple with the security threat that persons of interest (POIs) pose to their employees and assets. POIs are motivated by a variety of factors including financial, [...]
As investigators, we often find that there is a significant disconnect between what less-informed security managers THINK can be discovered during the course of an online investigation versus what ACTUALLY can be discovered. This two-part series from Ami Toben and Travis Lishok gives an appropriate account of how online investigations inform operations on the ground and vice versa. Each [...]
In the protection industry, the topic of threat information sharing has not entered many of our industry dialogues, which is overdue. Although information sharing is no easy task for our organizations, we cannot ignore the fact many potential threat actors we investigate may target multiple public figures over time. Therefore, it makes sense to consider sharing our investigative [...]
2018 undoubtedly has been an interesting year as it relates to protective intelligence initiatives and the challenges that our colleagues across the asset protection industry face. If we were to adequately address all of the important issues from 2018, this brief would be nearly 35,000 words – thankfully, we’re limiting this to a high-level overview. [...]
Our primary objective with the protective intelligence blog is to share ideas and create a discourse that will help like minded security professionals to protect assets and save lives. As talented as our team of contributors is, we see great value in highlighting important works created by our colleagues in the industry. Recent domestic and world events continue [...]
The concept of “protective intelligence” was originally founded on the assumption that those actors that attempt to harm public figures share a common behavior & way of thinking. Additionally, these actors forecast their operational planning in the form of various pre-incident indicators – which, if detected and analyzed, can be used to mitigate threats. This has been best [...]
This month, we thought it would be good to share some of our favorite resources that a security professional can use to stay sharp. We are often asked by our clients and colleagues what literature or ongoing education we consume in order to follow trends relating to protective intelligence. Our typical answer is that it’s a relatively sophisticated [...]
According to the FBI in its April 2018 report titled, “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2016 and 2017,” attacks have spiked significantly in the last several years. Below, they have been broken down by the settings in which they occurred: 17 - Business/commerce environments (8 offenders were current or former employees) 14 - Open space [...]
In the previous article (Part I), we discussed the context around open source intelligence (OSINT) research – how OSINT fits into the intelligence cycle, the explosion in social media use, and background information about the internet & browsing.In this second half of the series, we will now discuss tools and concepts that are central to the duties of an [...]
Our two part series is divided into the following segments: Part I, in which we highlight the context in which protective intelligence professionals use open source intelligence (OSINT) and Part II, a brief overview of OSINT collection methods and how they relate to our organizations’ protection strategies.What makes OSINT research so important to protective intelligence professionals is that it’s [...]