The Pivotal Role of OSINT for Effective Emergency Management
If an organization wants to prepare an effective response to an evolving threat landscape and better protect both their assets and employees they need to have effective intelligence for emergency management.
An emergency incident can happen at any time, often with very little warning. If an organization wants to prepare an effective response to an evolving threat landscape and better protect both their assets and employees they need to have efficient mitigation and response measures in place.
Data and intelligence form a pivotal role in emergency management. They allow security and event management teams to discover threats and accurately assess the associated risk levels. With this knowledge, they can enact an appropriate response to remove employees from harm’s way and prevent potential damages to the organization.
Data Performs a Vital Role in Emergency Management
Some of the ways data and intelligence gathered using Signal OSINT can be used include:
Better Situational Awareness. Save time and lives by rounding out your situational awareness with commentary, photos and videos posted online by the public and media.
Misinformation Management. Catch and manage the spread of misinformation in real-time before it spreads to the public and puts lives at risk, wasting precious time and resource.
Improved Agency Collaboration. Get a better view of what other agencies are doing during an emergency to ensure you allocate people effectively.
Geo-targeted Risk Assessment. Keep an eye on areas of interest, such as near a location of an event you’re hosting, and watch for disruptions such as extreme weather or terrorist threats near your offices.
Threats, Hazards, and Risks.
There are three main types of threats and hazards. First, natural hazards. This includes extreme weather such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires. These can cause extensive disruptions to a business. Such events are often seasonal and organizations should monitor for them during high risk months.
Secondly, technological hazards. These include power outages and infrastructure failures. For example, your business might be affected by your internet provider going down temporarily, or transport links might be disrupted meaning employees are unable to get to work.
And thirdly, man-made hazards. These include cyber-attacks and data breaches, terrorist threats or threats against assets or executives. These can happen at any time, however, often you can find indications on data sources such as darknet forums before the event.
The Importance of Assessing Risks Appropriately
The more data and information you have the more accurately you can assess the risk level of an emerging threat. For example, you might use Signal to set up real-time alerts on an evolving threat like spreading wildfires. This allows you to continually reassess and determine in a timely manner when or if you need to take action to ensure your staff are removed from harms way. However, there is a fine balance between under and over protection.
The Risk of Over-protection
Over-protection is when you initiate responses either too early or too extreme. Erring on the side of caution is always a good idea when it come to protecting employees, however, it can be costly and inefficient.
Over-protection is often caused by the following:
Personal interpretation of the threat level.
Not having enough data to form an accurate assessment.
Not having enough alert levels to allow a staged escalation of measures appropriate for the evolving risk level.
The Risk of Under-protection
Just as with over-protection, under-protection will inhibit the effectiveness of your emergency management response. This can place employees unnecessarily in harms way and means you will be unable to appropriately respond to a threat. The end result of under-protection is invariably higher than necessary associated costs.
To prevent under-protection there are several things that an organization can do:
Provide clear guidance on risk levels of certain threats and make the response increase easy to implement.
Continually assess and reassess the evolving threat landscape and update your alert level guidance accordingly.
Other Emergency Risk Management Considerations
We have already mentioned alert levels a couple of times in this article. This is because having clear guidelines and properly gradated alert levels will allow you to respond effectively and efficiently to crises.
Additionally, your employees should be aware of your response plans, especially to common threats. For example, if your officers are located in an earthquake prone area, have regular earthquake drills.
Finally, should an emergency happen you need an efficient way to communicate the danger to your employees and instigate the appropriate response.
Signal and Emergency Management
Up to the Minute Intel
Emergencies happen without warning. Signal is flexible and fast allowing you to react effectively to the situation.
Prevent Misinformation
Misinformation and media can cause havoc in an emergency. Stay ahead of the noise with a real-time feed of targeted data.
Email and SMS Alerts
Signal has email and SMS alerts which allow you to stay updated on key evolving threats in real-time.
Signal provides hyper-relevant intelligence on evolving threats as or even before they happen. This allows security teams to maximize warning times and enact mitigating measures.
Immediately, this means better protection for staff. This also has additional longer term upsides. For example, it might allow a security team to detect negative sentiment around the brand which allows them to identify and monitor potential threat actors and prevent a threat from evolving. Or, it could allow for a team to have early detection of a data breach, which according to IBM could save an organisation over $600,000.
Responding to Global Crises like COVID-19 with Increased Situational Awareness
In the wake of a global incident, corporations need fact-based reliable information from official sources and they need it fast. The smart adoption of technology can help facilitate the means for companies to protect their teams and assets as well as mitigate potential damages to the business.
Corona Virus has for many been a rude awakening. Companies have been left scrabbling in an attempt to put in place contingency plans and deal with the spread of misinformation, all whilst facing tumbling share prices.
COVID-19 is the most recent global incident, it’s not the first and it won’t be the last, however, it has thrown into harsh light the realities and weaknesses that surround many organisations international structure. Our increasing levels of globalization throw local isolationist policies out the window and if a company wishes to maintain economic growth changes in the way that they manage their response to global incidents is needed.
In the wake of a global incident, corporations need fact-based reliable information from official sources and they need it fast. The smart adoption of technology can help facilitate the means for companies to protect their teams and assets as well as mitigate potential damages to the business.
Dealing with Misinformation: Disruption is the new normal.
The rapid spread of news and information online has sparked a recent increase in global headlines highlighting critical outbreaks. International concerns can cause loud and distracting noise when trying to identify specific data.
On top of this, panic has followed in the wake of COVID-19, stocks have plummeted to levels that haven’t been seen since 2008, people are rushing to stores to stock up on necessities. This panic has been spread and amplified by both a lack of preparation for a global crisis of this nature, as well as an amount of misinformation spread rapidly through both social media and even through more trustworthy news sources.
To tackle this, the first thing any organisation needs is accurate, relevant and trustworthy information. You don’t want to be relying on secondary, potentially egregious sources, not only because it will take longer to uncover news forcing, but you also won’t know how reliable that information is. Sad as it may be to admit, many media outlets aim to sell news, and facts aren’t necessarily lucrative, spectacle sells.
Using an open-source intelligence (OSINT) software like Signal you can create a custom real-time stream from official sources such as the World Health Organisation, or the CDC to get reliable information and updates fast. Easily sift through unwanted information to detect only the most valuable in an outbreak.
Better situational awareness for a more efficient response
Increased situational awareness allows companies to proactively respond to crises. It allows them to get accurate information first, and create actionable and effective strategies based on reliable data to efficiently counter emerging threats.
As well as having multiple sources, companies can use OSINT tools to identify trustworthy and “official” statements and sources and tailor their live stream searches around those. This is often where the news breaks first and will give an unbiased account of the facts.
Examples of responses to COVID-19 can be seen from several large companies including Facebook and Amazon. In areas where there are outbreaks, such as Seattle, they have closed down offices and asked employees to work from home. They have also both cancelled conferences which would have drawn thousands of people together with potentially disastrous results - instead they are looking at creating a virtual experience instead. This is just one example, of how companies, armed with accurate information can then use available technology to facilitate preventative measures mitigating the threat of the outbreak.
How OSINT software can help
Improve employee safety
Knowing how to respond and then implementing an effective response without causing further panic or further spreading misinformation allows organisations to effectively protect their staff in and outside of the office.
For example, knowing how COVID-19 is spread as well as understanding the the severity and location of the outbreaks means you can form effective localised preventative measures without causing undue widespread panic or unnecessarily harming your business.
Better executive protection
Executives travel, and travel entails risk especially with an evolving international crisis of this nature. In this scenario, for example, it would be sensible to protect these executives by taking simple precautions such as delaying trips to areas with severe outbreaks such as China or Italy.
In line with current government recommendations all employees should be practicing social distancing and where possible managing meetings with video conferencing technology. Adapting in the face of an emerging threat such as COVID-19 allows companies to reduce the risks that they face and better protect their staff from exposure.
Supply chain management
Those businesses that are built on the foundations of large and complex international supply chains have to question their structure and practices. What is the backup plan? How do you mitigate the threat to a potentially compromised supply chain? And perhaps, more importantly, how do you protect those staff and assets that are involved?
First, you need actionable and accurate information in real time allowing you to fully understand potential risks and issues and only then can you form an effective plan of action.
Summary : The Importance of Accurate Real Time Data
Coronavirus is the only the latest example of a disruptive global crisis and it won’t be the last.
Due to the rise of unofficial media sources which can easily disseminate news through the internet, especially social media platforms, there is a lot of potentially unreliable information being consumed. Fact-checking can be immensely time-consuming and many people don’t bother, which is how false information propagates. As an organisation though this misinformation can be as harmful or even more harmful than the reality. Getting ahead of and tackling false news becomes an important task.
In terms of dealing with a global crisis such as COVID-19, think about spreading fact-checked sources through internal communications to allay fears spread through potentially incorrect or misleading media. This will also show employees that you are on top of the situation encouraging trust in the organisation and your official response.
To truly and effectively mitigate the threat of global incidents, how companies utilise technology to adapt to the scenario will make a huge difference. Ask yourself: Does your business offer flexible working practices? How can your business support workers if they need to self-isolate? Do you need your executives to attend events in physical locations or can business be done virtually? And as a final consideration - a side effect of these changes - how might these adaptations become more normalised to improve employee efficiency as well as supporting a healthier work life balance?