CHAPTER 3

The Benefits of Counterintelligence for Corporate Environments

The concept of counterintelligence and its large variety of applications have improved military operational efficiency, organization, structure, planning, strategies, and continuity for centuries. Counterintelligence gave military forces a whole new approach, an opportunity to profile their enemy; assess risks, threats, and vulnerabilities; gather intelligence; operate more quickly and efficiently; and make themselves more resilient against enemy intelligence activities. With the more complex threat landscapes of today, counterintelligence will be increasingly relied upon in order to gain and retain an advantage over hostile parties.

This chapter will illustrate how the concepts applied by military forces around the world can also benefit corporate environments and help them gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the importance of business integrity and authenticity as well as the value of intelligence and counterintelligence. Counterintelligence will improve the security model of corporate environments and make them more resilient against hostile intelligence gathering or sabotage. Apart from that, counterintelligence approaches and methodologies can improve communication, operational efficiency, and organizational structure for small companies as well as large multinational enterprises. Counterintelligence offers corporate environments a whole new way of perception that can be integrated into every aspect of a business.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to understand and explain the following:

• The benefits of counterintelligence in security planning and applications
• The benefits of counterintelligence in business integrity and authenticity
• The benefits of counterintelligence in operational continuity and efficiency
• The ways in which existing security strategies can be improved and reinforced through counterintelligence
• The importance of the intelligence–counterintelligence loop

The Benefits of Counterintelligence in Security Planning and Applications

Security models, strategies, and applications are evolving. With more threats spawning out of a large variety of different angles, corporate environments now more than ever before need a detailed, comprehensive, and complete security model.

In my experience, many businesses, both small and large, are often completely overwhelmed by these diverse threat landscapes and don’t have the knowledge, resources, or time to meet the requirements to properly protect themselves against these threats. This is one of the reasons why trends have become so popular with managements. By following a certain trend a company can give the impression that its security models are up-to-date without having to worry that much about the large variety of other threats. Right now cybersecurity is taking over security models all over the world, and although it is a vital component of a good security model, the model should in no way be entirely based upon it.

The reason why many businesses still choose to focus almost exclusively on cybersecurity is that they don’t have proper intelligence of the whole and true threat landscape: They copied the latest trends instead of performing all-round research and risk assessments. In other cases, the knowledge is there, but the lack of proper organizational structure, financial resources, or operational capacity denies companies the ability to adapt and make their security models more efficient.

The counterintelligence approach can change all this and will provide businesses with a set of proper fundamentals that can be integrated into any business without too much financial sacrifice. Counterintelligence doesn’t necessarily rely on expensive countermeasures, software tools, or security products, although in some cases these can benefit your company, depending on the size and scale of its operations.

Instead, counterintelligence revolves around strategies, methodologies, and a certain way of addressing problems and obstacles. Counterintelligence is a science, a craft, an art form that anyone can learn and master. It can be enhanced by security measures, applications, and products, but is never dependent on them. It shows you and makes you understand exactly what it is that’s most valuable to the survival, wealth, and security of a business. It defines assets as well as strengths, showing you the true risk profile of a business.

Every business is unique—not just because every business stands out with its unique set of operations, products, and services, but also because every business has a unique mission, vision, and life story.

The mission, vision, and life story are reinforced by the unique set of employees a business has. It is these aspects of a business that constitute its heart and soul and thereby are the most vital components that need to be protected.

Many security models in today’s corporate environments are geared toward the prevention, mitigation, and neutralization of certain threats, vulnerabilities, and risks. These security models are often adapted to the financial resources, time, manpower, and priorities of the business. In many cases expensive security systems are relied upon in order to provide management with the delusion that they’ve taken every step necessary to protect their business to the best of their abilities and resources.

These decisions are often made if the business hasn’t properly identified its threat profile or its management won’t spill too much resources and time for a thorough risk assessment and a well-adjusted security model and measures.

In other cases, security is neglected as a result of denying risks. In such instances risks are often taken lightly and easily discarded by those responsible for security, and phrases such as “It probably won’t happen to us” become the new policy standard.

Then we have the corporate environments that do invest adequate time and resources in the creation and application of a proper security plan. The problem here is that they often only model their security plan to a certain aspect of their risk profile, which in today’s world, is almost always cybersecurity. By focusing completely on one aspect of their risk profile, they neglect the other aspects and at the end of the day they are left with an incomplete and vulnerable security model.

Like I said earlier, trends and hypes can be deadly for a corporate environment. Often the lack of advanced knowledge and detailed blueprints of the complete risk and threat profile of a business is the reason why this continues to happen.

The first thing a proper counterintelligence plan does is make you aware of the entire risk profile of your company, division, or operation.

For military units preparing for counterintelligence operations, every detail that can possibly be perceived as a threat, vulnerability, or risk is integrated into the counterintelligence estimate. Often this can be something as small as the fiber from which a certain cloth or carpet is made. The reason why these aspects are so strictly integrated is that in the military field even a tiny mistake or miscalculation can cost dozens of lives.

This is partially applicable to corporate environments as well. Maybe the probability of loss of life by tiny mistakes or miscalculations is far less, but these can still have a negative impact on the company itself.

Security planning is all about adapting to your risk profile. In order to plan properly for security operations, applications, and policies, one must be in the possession of relevant, complete, and accurate intelligence regarding the threats, vulnerabilities, and risks the company faces. Counterintelligence methodologies offer a large variety of ways in which you can make the most accurate and detailed risk assessments possible.

The way in which these strategies should be executed will be discussed in detail over the course of the next chapters. The problem with many risk assessments and security models in today’s corporate environments is that they’re often incomplete and poorly organized. In this way security planning becomes a truly chaotic nightmare as it is almost impossible to properly plan anything in business without a proper overview created by a properly organized structure in your strategic blueprints. Incomplete risk assessments that are focused on only the elements that the management wants to see instead of the elements that actually matter to the well-being and security of the company often result in incomplete and inaccurate risk profiles and therefore offtrack security models and applications.

Counterintelligence methodologies, if integrated and used correctly, can solve these problems by providing its students with a proper set of models and principles that will improve the accuracy, efficiency, sophistication, and structure of risk assessments and security plans.

In addition, counterintelligence can benefit individual and collective security measures and applications. Counterintelligence methodologies can be applied to interlock various security applications and measures with one another in order to make the entire security effort more structured, organized, and efficient.

They also provide a continuous platform for the proper evaluation and adaptation of existing security measures, given the fact that counterintelligence operations revolve around continuous surveys and estimates in order to maintain accurate and timely operational intelligence and enhance operational efficiency.

For a corporate environment the measurement of the efficiency of long-standing security measures and applications often proves to be difficult and time-consuming. The reason for this is that many corporate environments lack the proper foundations of continuous evaluation and adaptation and have to create such features as they go along.

The threat landscape is continuously changing, which means that corporate environments must be provided with the proper foundations in order to continuously evaluate and adapt their security models and applications.

Another reason why counterintelligence concepts and principles can benefit security applications and measures is that counterintelligence is based on the collection of complete, detailed, relevant, and accurate intelligence, which makes sure that every security measure and application is applied in exactly the right context, at exactly the right time, in exactly the right circumstances. Every security measure will be applied to an exact part of the security model and will have detailed functions and objectives.

In many corporate environments security measures and applications are often applied on a more global basis as that’s a current trend in the industry or simply because the corporate environments have nothing more than a global overview of their risk and threat profile.

Like I said earlier, in military units and intelligence communities, the tiniest detail can mean the difference between life and death. Therefore, counterintelligence strategies and applications have to be based on detailed and accurate intelligence.

For a business, the tiniest mistake can mean the destruction and loss of assets that are critical to its identity, continuity, and security.

The Benefits of Counterintelligence in Business Integrity and Authenticity

One of the most important aspects of integrating counterintelligence concepts and principles within corporate environments is understanding that intelligence is the foundation on which every business is built.

In previous chapters we’ve talked about the importance of intelligence gathering for entrepreneurs and corporate environments in order to gain control and oversight of their market, operations, and security profile. However, the parts in which the intelligence and therefore counterintelligence are absolutely vital are the components of business integrity and authenticity. Every business and corporate environment is unique because of its identity. The identity dictates the operations, services, public reception, clients, employees and pretty much every other aspect of the business.

This identity, and all the things that go along with it, is the unique intelligence that only that business or corporate environment can provide. Therefore, this intelligence is extremely vital to hostile business competitors who rely on economic espionage. It’s this identity that provides a business or corporate environment its heart and soul.

On the previous pages we’ve discussed counterintelligence benefits for security planning and applications. Although counterintelligence is a security methodology, by nature it has the potential to transcend conventional security models as it understands that intelligence is both vital to the growth and efficiency of a company and its very heart and soul, and needs to be preserved and protected in order to keep the business alive.

In order to truly optimize counterintelligence principles, a corporate environment needs to integrate them into both security and business planning. Due diligence needs to be integrated at every point in order to protect and safeguard every aspect of the company.

Counterintelligence shows us that the identity, integrity, authenticity, and the unique intelligence a business can provide are the first and most important aspects that need to be protected. There are a couple of ways in which you can do that.

One of the most popular and effective ways is to patent and trademark any unique brand, service, formula, or product in order to provide your business with the appropriate legal protection and innovative authenticity. Another way is to progressively initiate your business or any new operations. This way you keep control and oversight of what you’re doing, and you can make sure that any new innovation or initiative is properly protected from a legal perspective. You can actively lay claim on the brand, product, formula, or service without a dispute.

Many entrepreneurs and even big corporate environments neglect this risk and go all in too fast and too soon. For competitors and other hostile parties relying on economic espionage and corporate theft, this is a true jackpot. Patience is a very important virtue both in life and in business.

Another way in which your business integrity and authenticity can be protected is through the proper screening of personnel, vendors, contractors, and clients. The screening of personnel has become all the more important in today’s corporate environments and not just to find out if a person is suitable for the job profile.

With an increase in cybercrime, terrorism, and workplace violence, knowing what kind of personality you allow entry into the inner circles of your operation is vital to the protection and security of your assets and employees. Other entities that are increasing their screening activities are your clients and contractors. Business is in many ways based on trust, and with an increase in fraud, sabotage, corporate theft, and economic espionage, potential clients have become warier of partnering with other entities. Just as clients screen and profile you, you should do the same. Knowing with whom you do business not only helps you adjust to their wishes, needs, and demands but will also give you a clear idea about their background, motives, and objectives.

A more personal aspect that is often overlooked in the effort to protect and safeguard business integrity and authenticity is the verbal dissemination of information of entrepreneurs, business owners, or high-ranking managers to other individuals.

History is full of cases with such individuals disclosing sensitive data, information, and even formulas or trade secrets to the wrong individuals. Providing such sensitive intelligence to other people in your social environment can backfire dramatically if the intelligence is disseminated to the wrong individuals. Even public conversations or phone calls can be tapped or eavesdropped by people who have ill intentions.

Efforts should therefore be made to make employees, supervisors, and managers over every tier of the organization aware of the significance of sensitive information, data, and formulas that could dramatically affect business integrity, authenticity, and continuity should they fall into the wrong hands.

Letters, policies, meetings, events, seminars, and training should be relied upon in order to spread awareness to all the tiers of the organization to mitigate the risks of employees disclosing such intelligence. A fierce penalty for neglecting this should also be instituted by upper management and supervisors.

Every employee of a business has a partial responsibility to the business integrity, authenticity, security, and therefore well-being of the business.

The Benefits of Counterintelligence in Operational Continuity and Efficiency

Many individuals regard counterintelligence solely as a means to protect intelligence and prevent, deter, detect, and counter any intelligence effort of hostile parties. However, in order to optimize counterintelligence, one must be able to collect intelligence and disseminate it to all relevant parties in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The dissemination of valuable intelligence, and therefore the efficient application of counterintelligence, relies on proper communication between every tier of an organization.

Counterintelligence cannot exist without the collection and integration of relevant, accurate, and detailed intelligence that will be disseminated to all relevant parties through proper communication channels. This process is what we will refer to as the intelligence–counterintelligence loop.

This so-called loop can be extremely valuable to business operations and operational efficiency. Many corporate environments lack two things: proper collection and dissemination of relevant, accurate, and complete intelligence and proper communication between the various tiers of their organizational structure.

The intelligence–counterintelligence loop has the ability to change that and improve communication and the dissemination of important information inside an organizational structure.

Many of the concepts and methodologies of how to do this will be discussed over the following chapters of this book. What’s important to understand for now is what causes operational continuity and efficiency. Both operational continuity and efficiency can exist only if the business is in the possession of proper intelligence that is not only collected and analyzed but also disseminated throughout the company. Many successful and thriving businesses already employ these concepts but don’t have a clue that what they’re doing is actually an important fundamental aspect of the intelligence–counterintelligence loop.

In many ways you can say that these principles are at the core of all other counterintelligence methodologies.

However, in the corporate environments of today, there’s also a lot of neglect of these important aspects of intelligence and communication. Both new businesses and institutionalized enterprises often lack a continuous process of intelligence collection and analysis as well as proper communication between the various tiers of the organizational and operational structure.

Instead, they often choose a just do approach and hope the ball falls into the net. This is particularly true for new businesses with little experience and little patience but is also more common than you would expect in large projects initiated by top-tier enterprises.

One reason for this is that the stakes of starting a new business or initiating a high-profile project are incredibly high and leave some individuals and teams prone to panic.

People panic when they don’t have appropriate answers to a certain problem that they don’t fully understand. This is one of the many reasons why intelligence collection and analysis as well as proper communication throughout the organization are of vital importance to operational progression and success.

Intelligence gives you an insight into and understanding of a certain threat landscape, potential problems and obstacles, and the appropriate way to success. Through communication, a business can optimize the talents and influence of every tier of its organizational structure as well as disseminate accurate and relevant intelligence very quickly and efficiently.

Conclusion

Counterintelligence has many facets and aspects that can all benefit a corporate environment. In order to properly integrate and apply counterintelligence concepts and principles, one must understand that intelligence is absolutely vital not only to the security efforts of a business but also to its overall efficiency and success. Just like military units in the heat of battle, corporate environments too rely on intelligence in order to survive and be successful.

Security efforts can be better planned and measures can be applied more efficiently. Business integrity and authenticity will be better safeguarded once you understand the vital intelligence others can extract from your brand. Operational continuity and efficiency can be optimized through proper intelligence collection and integration and the dissemination of that intelligence through proper communication networks running through every tier of the organization.

The intelligence–counterintelligence loop teaches us about the heart and soul of counterintelligence and the foundation it needs to have in order to be optimized. Without intelligence there’s no counterintelligence and without intelligence there’s no efficient business strategy.

The more you will be able to understand how important intelligence is for any corporate environment, whether it’s big or small, the more you will appreciate counterintelligence and its applications for the corporate field.