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United Kingdom
British investigators flock south to Florida Eldorado

Like the many East Coast corporate intelligence operators, British firms are now being drawn to the Miami sun after traditionally taking root in the concrete jungle of New York City.

Spotlight | United Kingdom, United States
Corporate intelligence firms face succession choices

Founders and managers looking to protect their corporate intelligence firms' futures essentially only have two quite different routes open to them.

France
French armed forces general staff prioritises information warfare capacities

With information warfare a huge component of the Ukrainian conflict and France fast losing ground in the Sahel, the French armed forces general staff is determined to regain its footing in the field.

United States
NGA's intelligence cloud contract signals ultimate demise of JEDI project

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) award of a cloud contract to General Dynamics Information Technology marks the end of ambitions to create a unified cloud for the entire US defence community. Interoperability is the new watchword.

France
Ben Scott and Pierre Omidyar's anti-disinfo lobby monitoring French elections

Luminate and Reset are about to reveal the existence of their task force GVNIE, which is tracking fake news and hate speech in the run-up to the presidential election. Meanwhile, Viginum, the French agency dedicated to fighting foreign digital interference, is struggling to take off.

United States
CIA rolls out well-oiled plan on familiar turf in Ukraine

Engrossed in Europe, US intelligence has increased its operations in Ukraine. It has considerable scope of action in the country forged from eight years of building relations with and providing support to its Ukrainian homologues.

China, United States
Pangu Lab, Chinese ally of Singapore's zero-day reseller Coseinc, exposes NSA cyber operations

Close to Singapore's zero-day vulnerabilities broker Coseinc and Chinese cybersecurity giant Qi An Xin, China's Pangu Lab has published a lengthy report on a threat campaign attributed to the NSA-linked advance persistent threat group Equation Group.

The Corporate Intelligence Village Voice
Raven Special Risks, CIFAL, Riskology, Sibylline

Appointments, financial results, new contracts: each week, we report on events both big and small that matter in the global corporate intelligence community. This week we go to London and Tashkent.

LondonFormer Control Risks exec Michael Haughey returns from Singapore.

TashkentJoanna Golas keeps CIFAL's French networks in the loop.

LondonRiskology bows out after the death of co-founder.

Austin/LondonSibylline handles Apple's intelligence threats.

United States
Linkedin strengthens threat intelligence with former Facebook staff

Professional social network Linkedin has been singled out as a Chinese intelligence data source and is strengthening its threat intelligence department by recruiting from Meta (formerly Facebook), which has been extending its teams in this field over the past three years.

France, Sahel
Amarante to monitor influence operations in the Sahel for French defence ministry

The ministry of armed forces has hired the French security group Amarante to conduct a study of the networks and relays of influence in G5 Sahel countries. The French government is increasingly concerned about foreign interference campaigns in the region, where it has plans for its own strategy of influence.

Ireland, United Kingdom
Irish Data Protection Commission beefs up technical investigation capacities with help from private sector

The regulator, which has come under attack for not being tougher with the US tech giants, has teamed with a British forensics expert and four international accounting firms to bolster its investigations.

Spotlight | Europe, Israel, United States
Wi-Fi protocol evolution is turning agencies away from dedicated interception systems

The increasing use of randomised MAC addresses has made Wi-Fi interception more difficult and tools less stable. A similar process of obfuscation of the unique identifier is being implemented by the 5G network, which does not bode well for the future use of current interception tools.

Spotlight | Europe, United Kingdom, United States
ESG investigations - mirage or growth opportunity for investigation firms?

For more and more business intelligence companies, having an operational social and environmental governance investigation service is becoming a necessary accessory for the 2021-2022 autumn-winter season. Is the rise in demand for these investigations, which is driven by tighter regulations in a number of major countries, just a passing fashion or could it mark the start of development of a substantial new market?

Spotlight | Europe, Israel, United States
How OSINT has worked its way among cyber-intelligence experts

Open-source intelligence (OSINT), considered less touchy than cyber-attacking, is less regulated and easier for goverments to showcase. However, the one-upmanship in the sector is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between passive and active intelligence.

United Kingdom
West Sands founders take on new roles - one goes solo and one to Sibylline

Business intelligence experts Tamara Markarenko and Daphne Biliouri, who used to work together at West Sands Advisory, have returned to the market via different paths.

France
Viginum and DGSI consider partnering with defence-backed startups to fight fake news

With four months to go before the French presidential elections, Sahar and Storyzy, two start-ups backed in their early days by the French armed forces ministry, are leading the field for contracts to equip the DGSI and Viginum - the second on the advice of the first - with cyber systems to fight fake news.