Intelligence

In a world where knowledge is power, what you do not know can hurt you. However, it is not hard to find out what your competition or adversary is up to.

Information is the currency that produces intelligence. Information precedes intelligence. Analysis must be performed on information before it is classified as intelligence. Information is defined as pieces of raw, unanalysed data that identify

• People
• Evidence 
• Events 
• Processes
• Criminal event or activity
• Witnesses 

Nearly all intelligence products are offered analysis at low, medium or high confidence - language intelligence agencies use to signal the amount of hard information (evidence) to buttress their conclusions. 

Analytic confidence is based on the analyst’s confidence in the analysis & the process & inputs by which it was created - a measure that goes beyond simply what the evidence points to & conveys how comfortable or confident the analyst is in his/her analyses.

An intelligence operation is the process by which governments, military groups, businesses & other organizations systematically collect & evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities & intentions of their rivals. Intelligence collection management is the process of managing & organizing the collection of intelligence from various sources. The collection department of an intelligence organization may attempt basic validation of what it collects but is not supposed to analyze its significance.

The intelligence cycle is made up of the following phases:

• direction
• collection
• analysis
• dissemination
• feedback & review

Corporate spying is not a crime if the methods employed are legal, such as hiring secret shoppers to evaluate retail stores, hiring an investigator to eavesdrop at a trade show or using the internet to collect information to tailor marketing to individual customers. When a company tracks web searches & keystrokes of employees who are using its computers, it is not breaking the law. However, corporations can & do blunder over the line, by obtaining information illegally.

Competitive intelligence is the collecting & analyzing of actionable information about competitors & the marketplace to form a business strategy. Competitive intelligence can drive your strategy, soothe your fears about the future & give your company a competitive edge. Intelligence has become a synergistic product intended to provide meaningful & trustworthy direction to decision makers about:-

? Criminal activity

? Extremists

? Terrorists

? Risk

Competitive intelligence is more than simply "knowing your enemy." It is knowing your competitors & the competitive landscape, as well as customers & how they fit into every aspect of the marketplace. It is also knowing how the marketplace & a business may be disrupted by a variety of events, how distributors & other stakeholders could be impacted & how new technologies can quickly render invalid every assumption.

Competitive intelligence gathering must be performed quickly & ethically, all-encompassing & must utilize both published & unpublished sources. It is successful when a business has a detailed enough portrait of the marketplace so that it may anticipate & respond to challenges & problems before they arise.

Competitive intelligence relies solely on legal & ethical means to gather data, piece it together to form information & analyze it to create intelligence for the use of decision-makers. Over 95% of the information companies require to compete successfully is available in the public domain

Competitive intelligence means different things to different people within an organization. To top management, it may mean unique marketing insights to gain market share against a formidable competitor. Up-to-date information can make the difference between keeping pace, getting ahead or getting left behind. Nothing is completely stealthy. All corporate manoeuvers leave a trail, so it is simply a matter of knowing where to look

A well conducted intelligence operation serves as an early-warning system for disruptive changes in the competitive landscape, whether that change is a rival's new product or pricing strategy or the entrance of an unexpected player into the market. Intelligence provides an organisation with the capability to forecast change in time to do something about it. The capability involves foresight, insight & is intended to identify impending change which may be positive, representing opportunity, or negative, representing threat. 

Business intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, applications & practices for the collection, integration, analysis & presentation of business information. The purpose of BI is to support better business decision making. 

Industrial Espionage

Intense competition leads some companies to do whatever it takes to get ahead. In extreme cases, companies may engage in industrial espionage to get an edge on the competition.

Industrial espionage is any activity which uses deceit to obtain privileged information from a competing company. This information can take the form of trade secrets, internal memos, sales reports or any type of sensitive data. The means by which companies try to gain information on their competition can vary widely but all attempts must utilize creative strategies such as:-

Fraud/False Pretenses

Social engineering involves efforts to get employees to unwittingly divulge information. Usually, social engineering attacks involve employees of one company attempting to infiltrate a rival company.

Company A may send its employees to apply for jobs at Company B. If Company B hires any of these individuals, they can then establish relationships with workers at Company B or try to get positions overseeing important data.

Eventually, the infiltrated employees can record sensitive information or obtain passwords for encrypted data & report their findings back to Company A. However, such operations can sometimes take months or years to succeed.

Computer Hacking

Virtually all companies are connected to the Internet & conduct a huge amount of business online. While this creates convenience, any Internet connection is vulnerable to a hacker. Some companies may hire hackers to break into a rival company’s computer systems.

Stealing Documents

Dumpster diving is a very low-tech industrial espionage tactic. Companies generate huge amounts of paperwork, much of which may contain private information like passwords, internal memos or payroll data.

If a company neglects to shred this paperwork & throws it out into a dumpster, it is possible for an employee of a rival company to simply jump into the dumpster & steal the paperwork.

Gathering intelligence & information by means of espionage has been a key element to the survival of nations ever since their existence. However, there has been a major change in the way intelligence agencies work ever since the evolution of technology & the unthinkable amount of advances in the way people live their everyday lives. Primitive methods used by ninjas in Japan, were replaced by modern methods of espionage which all intelligence agencies & operatives are familiar with. 

Human intelligence is increasingly important

Humint refers to an intelligence discipline that bases its analysis & interpretations on information obtained through interpersonal relationships. Human intelligence is the collection of information from human sources which includes the employment of espionage, reconnaissance elements & intelligence officials under official or non-official ‘cover’ to procure information. This method is primarily clandestine in nature & is generally associated with espionage. Humint is probably the most well-known method of intelligence gathering. A source is usually identified & ‘cultivated’ by intelligence officers who are always looking out for new sources. However, the principle of compartmentalization in intelligence work dictates that recruitment of the source be done by a separate intelligence officer. This is necessary to ensure that any damage is limited, that the intelligence officer who initially identified the source is not compromised or burned if the recruitment process goes awry or if the source is subsequently uncovered by counter intelligence. Potential sources are screened against different factors to determine their ability to be recruited & act as a spy. Agents will be trained to determine the following factors about a potential source:

• Access to classified information
• Motivations (money, ideology, ego)
• Ability to provide required information
• Pattern of life – so as to not arouse suspicion

Over time, intelligence operatives build strong rapport with their sources before recruiting their sources as spies, using their motivation as the key.

Humint is required to complement technical intelligence assets. Humint is also gathered from people who are willing participants or detained persons. In many instances Humint is collected by individuals who act as liaison with different agencies.The best way to keep outsiders talking without tipping your hand about what exactly you are after is to look for opportunities to speak with them during the normal course of their business. When you interview consultants, ask them to share examples of their work. Consultants are focused more on obtaining your business than on determining your hidden agenda. People volunteer information most readily when they are talking about their interests.

Techint differs from Humint as it incorporates Signals Intelligence (Sigint), Imagery Intelligence (Imint), Geospatial Intelligence (Geoint) & Measurement & Signatures Intelligence (Masint). Technological developments over recent decades have led to a rapid growth in the Techint collection capabilities, resulting in security & intelligence agencies placing ever growing dependence on Techint. Common technologies in the collection of Techint include satellites, aircraft, decryption software, wiretapping, communication, unmanned aerial vehicles & drones, data monitoring & remote sensors.

Sensors have limited ability to penetrate solid objects, so that they cannot tell what is happening in underground bunkers such as those in North Korea are are likely used to hide their nuclear weapons programs. Urban areas present a particularly difficult challenge: there are far more individuals to track & far more structures, vehicles, trees & signs than at sea or in the sky. Figuring out whether a person is a civilian or an insurgent is a lot harder than figuring out whether an unidentified aircraft is a civilian aircraft or an enemy fighter. It is harder still to figure out how many enemy soldiers will resist or what stratagems they will employ. Machines are not able to penetrate human thought processes. Even with the best equipment in the world, militaries around the world have been surprised by their adversaries.

Yet no matter how far IT advances, it is doubtful that militaries will ever succeed in lifting the fog of war. The fallibility of soldiers & the cunningness of their adversaries will surely continue to frustrate the best laid plans. Moreover, societies that are increasingly reliant on high-tech systems create new vulnerabilities of their own, enemies have strong incentives to attack computer & communication nodes. Strikes on military information networks could blind or paralyse the armed forces, while strikes on civilian infrastructure, such as banking or air control systems, could cause chaos on the domestic front. Adversaries will almost certainly figure ways to blunt the advantage.

With so many advancements & new technologies on the market, the possibilities of threats against national security & the ability to combat those threats are almost endless. With more communications being conducted via technology rather than in traditional writing or face-to-face methods, Sigint provides an important gateway to communication intelligence. Due to the extensive usage of communications technology, communications intelligence allows one to gain an insight in the most personal thoughts, plans, opinions & discussions with others both friend & foe. Technological advancement in networking, file sharing & social media, etc., has enabled information sharing to be conducted in real-time on a global scale. Techint has the ability to identify, process & analyse large quantities of data & provide images & surveillance information at a much greater rate than what Humint can achieve.

Although Techint possesses many advanced capabilities, Humint has the ability to fill the intelligence gaps left by Techint. One limitation of Techint is that satellites & other Imint assets cannot see into buildings, caves or underground structures. This limitation means that agencies do not possess full situational awareness in their area of operations. Another benefit of Humint is the interpersonal nature of the intelligence collected. With regards to terrorist organisations that pose significant threat to national security, every intelligence agency would prefer to have a human agent well situated inside the terrorist organisation.

Being adept at identifying the weaknesses of one discipline & being adaptive & flexible enough to compensate & complement with another, is a prime example of the persistent relevance of both intelligence-gathering methods.

Without this flexibility & experience in both disciplines, intelligence agencies have the potential to become irrelevant. Therefore, maintaining both capabilities is beneficial to national security intelligence. The benefits of Humint far outweigh its limitations & issues. However, they still exist & have sometimes contributed to intelligence failures. As agents are dealing directly with human beings, often recruiting foreign assets can be difficult. Agents cannot always overcome language barriers, cultural differences & personality characteristics when building an interpersonal relationship. Training a field agent also takes a significant amount of time & money, with no guarantee that an agency’s investment will pay off in the field. Additionally, as with any person, recruited foreign assets have the potential to be untrustworthy & there is always a high chance that information provided to agents may not be credible or reliable. The Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service at his 'ASIS at 60' speech admitted that HUMINT, by its nature, is an imperfect art.

Military Intelligence

Every successful military plan & operation relies on intelligence. Whether it is a simple field report from a scout about an enemy position or the methodical development of the mosaic of intelligence gathered from myriad sources over years that resulted in the successful raid of Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, intelligence plays a vital role in national security & defense. In the context of military operations, it is information concerning an enemy or possible enemy or an area.

Since earliest recorded history, accounts of people using espionage to try to understand the intentions of the adversary abound.

• Early Egyptian pharaohs employed agents to ferret out disloyal subjects & to locate tribes that could be conquered & enslaved. From 1,000 B.C. onwards, Egyptian espionage operations focused on foreign intelligence about the political & military strength of rivals Greece & Rome.
• The Romans used intelligence to conquer the people of the Italian Peninsula. They used scouts on regular assignments against the Samnites & Gauls, & because of advance intelligence, they could often catch their enemies by launching surprise attacks & rout their camps.

Military intelligence is concerned with the gathering & analysis of information related to the distribution of capabilities & the perceptions of threat of the adversary. Sun Tzu emphasised the crucial role of intelligence as a battle of wits, mind & strategy prior to the actual physical conduct of war. Therefore, the need for intelligence & for a capability to collect, produce & disseminate it is critical. The need for intelligence has not been eliminated by new sources of open information. These are still important, but it is hard to learn details about the intentions & capabilities of rogue states & terrorists, the proliferation of unconventional weapons & the disposition of potentially hostile military forces without dedicated intelligence assets.

National Security

National security is the basis for the prosperity of a country. Only a secure environment is capable of ensuring the functioning of a democratic constitutional order, sustainable economic growth, protection of human rights & freedoms, viability of civil society.

Intelligence will help you contextualize your adversaries. One you understand your adversaries better, you are positioned to take decisive action to neutralize the threat.

Most governments rely on a range of information gathered to guide their decisions. Every country take decisions in the conduct of their international relations on the basis of intelligence they possess about those countries they are dealing with. However, not all intelligence required for taking national decisions is always readily available. Countries have to deploy intelligence gathering activities to realize the required intelligence. Intelligence gathering & analysis are now considered indispensable government functions. Classified information is kept secret because its disclosure might harm national security, jeopardise the country's economic well-being or damage international relations. This sensitivity makes the classified information extremely attractive to foreign intelligence agents who might seek to obtain it for their governments.

Open information gathering of publicly available information is a routine activity of diplomatic staff, military attachés & trade delegations. Foreign representation often helps their government to shape their foreign, commercial & military policies. Information is derived from open sources such as the media, conferences, diplomatic events, trade fairs & through open contact with host government representatives. This enables them to monitor political, economic & military developments in the host country & brief their governments accordingly.

Intelligence gathering activities are an important aspect of international interaction. Between countries, individuals & corporations, the intelligence industry has become one of the biggest employers.

Espionage is the process of obtaining information that is not normally publicly available, using intelligence agents or hacking into computer systems. Espionage focuses on gathering non-public information through covert means. Foreign intelligence services, criminals & private sector spies are also focused on industry & the private sector. These adversaries use intelligence trade-craft against vulnerable companies & they increasingly view the cyber environment, where nearly all important business & technology information now resides as a fast, efficient & safe way to penetrate the foundations of an economy. Their efforts compromise intellectual property, trade secrets & technological developments that are critical to national security. Espionage against the private sector increases the danger to the long-term prosperity of a country. Nowadays there are more state actors as many countries are conducting espionage & foreign interference. There are many foreign intelligence agencies seeking to recruit host country officials in public service as well as cultivate politicians.

Intelligence is generally understood to have increased in importance & prestige since the 9/11 attacks. The war on terrorism is unusual in that intelligence occupies such a critical part. Intelligence is our first line of defense against terrorists & the threat posed by hostile states.

Today, the threat to national security is not in an enemy silo, but in the briefcase or the car bomb of a terrorist. This generation’s enemies are the terrorists & their outlaw nation sponsors - people who kill children or turn them into orphans; people who target innocent people in order to prevent peace. Their reach is unfortunately increased by technology. Their communication is abetted by global media. Their actions reveal the age-old lack of conscience, scruples & morality which have characterized the forces of destruction throughout history.

The war on terrorism has led to larger budgets for intelligence services & a more prominent role for intelligence in national decision making which has also bought with it greater expectations, which the intelligence communities are finding it difficult to meet.

Terrorism is a more difficult problem

Although terrorism is not the only important mission for intelligence services in the 21st century, it is widely considered to be the top priority for intelligence services. Most scholars & experts believe terrorism is an especially difficult problem for intelligence to deal with. The Al-Qaeda terror network is believed by some to be the most difficult adversary the intelligence community has ever faced. The intelligence systems & techniques developed during the Cold War are inappropriate & inadequate for countering terrorists.

Many experts believe that the most important source of intelligence on terrorist groups is Humint. It is widely accepted that technical intelligence collection methods such as imagery intelligence (Imint) & signals intelligence (Sigint) are not very useful against terrorist targets, whereas Humint is critical. The Humint & Techint collected as part of the collection phase is analysed to produce intelligence for key decision-makers responsible for national security

Gathering intelligence on terrorists is a far more difficult task than assessing whether a strategic rival is planning a massive military attack. By nature, the terrorist works by stealth, avoiding targets for which elaborate military-style preparations are necessary.

With a conventional military threat, there is relatively little problem determining the enemy’s capability - his order of battle. With a conventional foe, the enemy’s intent is the question. But in the case of terrorism, it’s just the opposite. Here the intent to commit harm is clear & the challenge for intelligence is to learn about the enemy’s capability to do so.

During the Cold War the enemy’s forces, such as troop formations, tanks & ballistic missile silos were relatively easy to find, but hard to kill. However, the situation is now reversed - our primary adversary is easy to kill, but hard to find

Executive protection & open source intelligence (OSINT)

Protective intelligence is the process of gathering & assessing information about entities that may have the intention & capability of harming your asset/principal & you. It is unique & interesting because you expand outwards from direct physical protection & enter other realms like online presence, remote information collection, open sourced information, communications & surveillance detection.

More corporations have begun to realize that early preventative measures are preferable to emergency reactive ones. The more visible the company or the executive, the more critical the need to be proactive. Close/executive protection professionals recognize the link between an individual’s public life & others’ perception of his or her life, which may draw unwanted attention.

In the world of protective intelligence, OSINT is just as important as information that is collected from the field to establish a larger outer security circle of proactive prevention around the asset/principal. An even larger circle (one with an undetermined size) of protective intelligence then established.

Osint is particularly useful to obtain vital information needed such as street maps, building schematics & background information about your location. These are tactical information required for planning. Strategically, information on the asset/principal, which may include, but is not limited to, negative information about this person, their company or business interests which could affect how you assess the needs of the protection security detail (PSD).

Hostile entities also use open sourced intelligence (OSINT) in their Hostile Planning Process & follow up with field intelligence (surveillance).

Intelligence is required even when the PSD (with asset/principal) is on the move. In most instances, the advance team is responsible for collecting & updating intelligence collected earlier. The motto for protective intelligence - Forearmed is forearmed. You cannot be too safe, too secure or too paranoid, when Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) is around. Far better to be safe than sorry.

Intelligence deals with all the things which should be known in advance of initiating a course of action. It is important to collect intelligence on all things that should be known in advance of the principal traveling domestically & internationally. Travel intelligence only has the principal’s interests as the guiding factor. The focus of a travel intelligence report is the safety & security of the principal (& their assets). These assets may include physical property such as vehicles, aircraft, etc & intellectual property such as confidential business information, trade secrets, etc. Due attention should also be accorded to potential threats to the principal’s image, potential inconveniences during travel, etc.

All information outside of safety, security & immediate factors impacting the principal will go in a separate travel research report for the PSD. Travel research should be completed well in advance of the trip. If the situation at the destination is so dangerous that PSD leader has to insist on the principal avoiding this location, then obviously, it is best to do this early.

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Endro Sunarso is an expert in Security Management, Physical Security & Anti/Counter Terrorism. He is regularly consulted on matters pertaining to transportation security, off-shore security, critical infrastructure protection, blast mitigation & corporate security (executive protection, crisis management, business continuity, counter corporate espionage, etc).

In the 1980's, Endro spent a few years with Singapore's Security & Intelligence Division (SID) - the external intelligence agency responsible for gathering & analysing intelligence related to the country's external security.

Endro believes that timely & accurate intelligence analysis enable decision makers to make better decisions.