Securing Highly Visible People from Personal Cyberattacks

Executive security teams encounter threats from several sources including social media, telephone, email, and event in-person physical threats. The teams must find out which are valid threats that need action, and which are simple online outbursts or harassment that should be supervised, but are mostly inoffensive. When the threat is worrying enough to prompt teams to take action, a characteristic response comprises physical, procedural, and technical security procedures. Nevertheless, unless a person has 24×7 executive protection (which is expensive), these threats don’t often intensify while an executive defense team is present. Thanks to this, digital executive security is critical.

Social Media Supervision

The chief social media platforms have teams who can spot menacing behavior and fierce rhetoric, and eliminate it rapidly. Thanks to their success, many of the hostile content is moving to non-traditional forums or social media platforms that are less-regulated. There are also special interest forums focused on technology, finance, or even home to dissatisfied former employees that represent considerable risk. 

Technical Signature Examination

People like to post online, and they tend to do so when they are emotionally thrilled. The perception of online secrecy has changed the game and occasionally individuals go so far as to make physical threats. When actors post they leave a digital trail, which can be supervised. Shrewd actors don’t use real names or locations, but opportune ascription can link the actor’s real identity to an online persona, supervision can follow, and alerts can be produced if threats happen. Also, the actor’s posts may unwittingly divulge a location or leave an IP address allowing him to be further identified. 

The Appropriate Approach to Digital Executive Security

A custom-made method to digital executive security lets security teams to exploit resources and identify threats without depending on 24×7 physical executive security. This method includes:

Custom-made social media and Open-Source Intelligence Collection: Building a collection engine that reduces visibility gaps is crucial: everything from breach data, to external traffic sources, to foreign media posts, Protective DNS, and corporate information should be enhanced. For example, if a cybercriminal posts a despicable threat but removes it a day later, the collection engine should be able to catch it. This requires proper data engineering of organized and amorphous data to search and alert. 

Threat Actor Engagement and Tailored Access: Seeing and engaging cybercriminals needs access to the platforms where they engage, a reliable-looking profile, and research. If a cybercriminal is irritating or leveling allegations against a company’s executive team, they are likely to leave digital breadcrumbs on chat forums or websites intended to attack the company, as well as social media forums. 

Technical Signatures Examination: Public information sources can help detect a threat actor’s designs. This data can disclose vital information enabling skilled investigators to match online activity, a general physical location, or movement patterns over time. 

Meaningful Evaluation: A system that alerts on the appropriate negative sentiment in an apt manner is critical to pertinent and actionable intelligence. Appreciating social norms, stylometric qualities, and context to actors lets experts quickly identify and determine malevolent capability and intent.

Attribution and Coordination: An important factor in effective digital executive defense is the capacity to attribute an actor’s online identities without warning the actor. This approach includes:

• Watching for pattern of life indicators such as the cybercriminal conducting surveillance activities
• Collecting and examining content for trigger words or photos
• Periodic communication with the Client’s security or physical team. Ascription should not be resource exhaustive and should happen in a timely manner

None of these several elements are a solution in themselves, but together they can flawlessly bridge the physical and the digital world. Combining these pieces lets a digital investigator to continue executive protection supervision, manage the intelligence for a cybercriminal as well as the victim, and ensure appropriate defense.