Politics and motives aside, I think everyone can conclude these are very dangerous days for journalists, advocates of free speech or anyone else for that matter that voices an opinion. For the security consultant who is providing services to journalists, activists or opposition politicians these clients can give you some unique challenges as the threats can include harassment and arrest by local or state police, as well as threats from opposing parties etc…
Residential Security
Just because someone has a security or private investigators license it does not mean they are competent or not working with the criminals. What a lot of people forget when hiring security personnel is that you get what you pay for.
Lessons Learned on Executive Protection Communication.
One important thing to realize is that the principal is the key figure in shaping the culture. Not all principals are the same. I have experience of principals that don’t want to see or hear the protectors.
Human Intelligence Could You Be The Next Target?
When you step into a new role where you have routine access to classified information, have access to large amounts of cash or other assets/valuables, or deal with sensitive business information, you may become the target of human intelligence or HUMINT. In light of this, this article covers the different aspects of the threat of human intelligence to keep in mind from the point of view of a corporate setting or government contract.
Crisis Management and Social Media
Effective crisis management invariably involves social media, whether the organization is a large multi-national or a small hometown business. When a crisis erupts, the effective use of social media should be seen as a key priority to counteract the crisis.
Global Situation Report June 2021
What to Make of Belarus’s Brazen Arrest of a Journalist In Belarus, the controversial arrest of a prominent opposition activist will force a Western reaction, but the beleaguered opposition still faces major challenges, likely enabling the Belarusian regime to sustain its power. On May 23, Belarusian authorities arrested the wanted opposition journalist Roman Protasevich after […]
Kidnap & Ransom – Part 1
If you are a security professional with significant high-threat worldwide protective services experience, you know that depending on the client, it may not be a matter of if your client or a family member is kidnapped, but when. You also understand that it is likely that you may not even be directly providing protection for the client at the time it happens and unable to prevent it, especially when they are alone and most vulnerable.
Cyber Security and Humans
Over 2020 cyber security and technology have only soared in terms of profile and importance, with talk about threats to remote working from technology, difficulties, and some dramatic outages. Logistics, enabled largely by technology, have been essential to keep things moving and give people support and normality.
Insecure Smart Houses
They are only of limited relevance today, but as the technologies involved become more widespread and implemented into every facet of life they will only become more prevalent. While it sounds like the stuff of science fiction, these threats exist now and are not going to go away.
For simplicity, we’ll say that a ‘smart’ device is anything which connects to the internet (or a network) and is not intended to be a computer interface. Intended is the key word there, as many of these devices are insecure for the simple reason that they are a computer. The problem is that it is now cheaper and easier to put a general purpose computer into a device and run some software to, for example, turn lights on and off than it is to design a single-purpose lightbulb which also connects to a network.
Industry News December 2020
We cast our eye over the main stories impacting the security industry. Here’s what’s appeared on the radar since the last issue.
Freedom or Security?
According to Paine, if twenty persons, all strangers to each other, found themselves in a previously uninhabited country, each individual’s will was his natural right. He had the freedom and liberty to do as he pleased, even invading the sovereignty of his neighbors. It would then occur to each sovereign individual that if he united with his neighbor for mutual protection he would increase his personal security. But to do that he would have to sacrifice certain degrees of his natural rights. The compromising of individual rights resulted in rights of “compact” or as our legislative laws were defined as “civil rights”.
War in Venezuela
On the morning of April 30th, 2019 Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó seemed to attempt a coup d’état against the communist government of Nicolás Maduro.
I use the word ‘seemed’ as what occurred can be best described as a publicity stunt more than an actual coup d’état. For the remainder of the day, even those that thought they knew what was going on in Venezuela, really, had no idea what was going on. While social media and the news channels were touting a revolution in Caracas, life went on as normal on the military bases and for the rest of Venezuela. Guaidó’s attempted overthrow was mostly just another demonstration that is all too common in Caracas.
Event Review – Learning and Development Forum
The Circuit Magazine held a Virtual Learning and Development Forum on September 4, 2020, that was attended by Executive Protection specialists and experts from around the globe, including the UK, US, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and West Africa.
Keeping Your Edge – Measured Responses in Tour Security – Part 3
In the previous instalments of this ongoing series, we discussed the challenges faced by Protectors who work with entertainers that spend at least some portions of their career involved in stage performances.
Commercial Security Courses
Having dug around in the last year to see what’s going on with security training courses at home and overseas, it would appear that there is a gap between what’s acceptable, to what’s a complete rip off, and that gap is as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Fit for Purpose – More than just a workout
The “workout” is only a part of the overall Physical Fitness picture. Give or take 8 hours a day for sleeping, that leaves 16 waking hours that require physical activity. I use the word “require” because if we want to stay active for the long game, then it really isn’t an option and it must be a priority. This is where I feel the missing link is for most people, a basic understanding of true Physical Fitness and how to apply it to everyday living without just viewing it as a workout period.
Three Keys to EP Success
As such, I always tell them that starting out in a career in EP can be challenging, more than likely it’s going to be slow going at first. The reasons for this are plentiful, some within your control and some that are not. The good news is that as I look around the industry, a greater number of specialists are entering our craft and being hired with greater frequency. Having said that, critical mistakes are also being made with nearly as much frequency.
It’s as if some have thought that because you have gone through your initial training and exceled, that you are immediately qualified to be the body man next right next to the Principal. Not true. There are many variables as to an agent’s success or defeat in EP. The keys discussed in this article are what work for me, and I hope by the end of the article you can put them to use as a tool for you as well.
Managing Your Digital Footprint
In the world of protective services, we are often charged with the responsibility of having to manage and reconcile between safety and access for our protectees.
As business owners, employees, independent contractors or just private citizens we too are challenged with the dichotomy of managing our personal and professional lives on social media.
Protecting the Principal in a Pandemic
From an operational perspective, CPs need to go back to fundamentals and apply the golden rules of protection planning and risk assessments to medical scenarios. For instance, from a strategy perspective, many HNW bought ventilators only to later discover that they would never be delivered due to shortage. So, it’s important to think how do we improve our planning and strategy from the outset to account for the unexpected? Scenarios and risks should be assessed as always in a well thought out threat matrix.