High-profile executives could raise the profile of your brand and influence trends in your industry, but they can also become a target for threat actors of all kinds. While much attention is paid to physical executive protection for CEOs, high profile executives are also at risk of cyberattack. The more publicly-facing your executives are, the more likely they are to be the focus of a hack. Addressing the digital risk surrounding your executives is crucial to effective threat monitoring.
About VIP Monitoring
What is VIP monitoring?
VIP monitoring is the process of tracking and monitoring the online and offline activity of high-profile individuals, such as executives, to find and mitigate any potential threats to their safety, reputation, or data. This includes monitoring the activity of such VIPs on social media and other platforms, tracking searches for them, and managing any public-facing information about their activities, data, or movements.
Why monitor executives’ online activities?
As high-profile individuals, executives and other VIPs are an attractive target for threat actors both online and in person. They’re also human, and capable of making mistakes that might compromise their safety, like accidentally revealing their location, or falling for a social engineering attack. By monitoring their activities online, your team can ensure that they’re not being targeted or putting themselves at risk.
What can a cyber attack on an executive do?
A successful attack on an executive can cause significant damage to the VIP themselves, and to your organization:
- A breach may reveal information that could physically harm the VIP
- A breach can lead to theft of sensitive company data, which can result in substantial monetary loss
- A successful breach can harm the public image of the organization, erode customer trust, and lead to regulatory scrutiny
Why is VIP Monitoring Especially Relevant Now?
Is a cyber attack on an executive as likely as a physical attack?
While physical attacks on executives might be on the public’s radar, it’s important to note that cyber attacks on executives have been trending up recently. Senior executives are extremely likely to be the target of cyberattacks, and security teams should be aware of any digital threat to a VIP.
Why is executive monitoring important in today’s cyber landscape?
Keeping VIP information has always been a challenge, but the advent of advanced technologies and sophisticated cyberattack methodologies has made it even more difficult to keep executive profiles and data secure. Traditional cybersecurity measures often fall short in the face of targeted attacks designed to penetrate complex networks and bypass security protocols.
How do bad actors target executives?
Threat actors are looking for the path of least resistance when planning an attack. The personal digital profiles of executives are a popular vector for attack because they tend to be less protected. Through methods such as spear phishing, threat actors will attempt to use these areas to gain unauthorized access to corporate data.
What is the role of threat intelligence in VIP monitoring?
Monitoring plays a key role in protecting executives and other VIPs from cyber attacks. By leveraging real-time monitoring and advanced threat intelligence, organizations can move beyond reactive security measures and take a proactive approach to safeguard executives:
Integrate the world’s easiest to use and most comprehensive cybercrime database into your security program in 30 minutes.
By adopting a proactive, monitoring-focused approach to VIP threat protection, organizations can:
- enhance their security posture
- protect executives
- gain a strategic advantage in the cyber landscape
How Does Flare Help Monitor your VIPs?
How does Flare monitor VIPs’ threat data?
Flare’s threat intelligence platform automates the process of scanning for threats related to your executives and their data. Flare monitors the clear & dark web — as well as prominent threat actor communities — sending your team alerts when key information about your VIPs is posted, leaked, or stolen. This allows your team to discover leaked or stolen data or attacks that are still in the planning stages and quickly take action.
What are the key benefits of Flare’s threat intelligence platform?
- Automated continuous monitoring: Using an automated solution gives you 24/7 coverage, so you will know as soon as VIPs’ information appears where it should not be.
- Relevant alerts: Flare rises above the noise by only delivering notifications when a threat is relevant to the security of your executives.
- A proactive security stance: By actively seeking out potential threats, you can catch breaches early and take steps to protect your executives.
- Unmatched data collection: Flare uses billions of data points to provide your team with information about your organization’s security stance, relevant threats, and the movement of threat actors between platforms.
- Transparency: Flare lists every source so you know exactly where your threat intelligence data is coming from.
Why use Flare to monitor threat intelligence related to your VIPs?
Your people are the most important assets your organization has. Being able to monitor threat intelligence about your executives is key to keeping them and their data safe from bad actors — but too many alerts can be a problem. Alert fatigue can cause your team to miss critical information, putting your executives at risk. Flare automates the process of scanning for threat intelligence data for information that specifically targets your organization, notifying your team only when relevant information is discovered. Flare is also able to provide context for every threat, translating notifications from other languages, so your analysts can stay on top of threats, no matter where those threats originate.
How Flare Helps with VIP Monitoring
The Flare Threat Exposure Management (TEM) solution empowers organizations to proactively detect, prioritize, and mitigate the types of exposures commonly exploited by threat actors. Our platform automatically scans the clear & dark web and prominent threat actor communities 24/7 to discover unknown events, prioritize risks, and deliver actionable intelligence you can use instantly to improve security. Flare provides accessible, scalable, and innovative cyber threat intelligence to help your team protect your VIPs.
Flare integrates into your security program in 30 minutes and often replaces several SaaS and open source tools. Learn more by signing up for our free trial.
