Counterintelligence Investigations Mission Portfolio: Food Ingredients Manufacturer One Step Behind

Situation

A large food ingredients manufacturer seemed to always be one step behind its competitors. Bluntly, its competitors seemed to know more about their strategies, tactics and plans better than its executives. Clearly, its competition was doing a better job with its intelligence services. The organization asked Aurora GPS to help it understand how these intelligence services worked and what it could do differently to protect its own insider information.

Method

Aurora GPS used a variety of techniques to understand the situation – personal interviews, purposely planted information, and publicly shared data. The organization had poor internal controls on insider information. Employees did not clearly understand the difference, and therefore were unable to effectively protect sensitive data from even the most basic intelligence collection techniques.

Results

With these findings, the organization instituted company-wide training programs designed to educate its employees on the nature of insider versus outsider information, as well as the common ways its competitors would hope to gather that information. Safeguards were put in place, including a specific hotline that all unusual inbound inquiries went to that was staffed by personnel trained in counterintelligence.