Online Corporate Protection and Executive Security

Proactive approach to corporate security online.

One thing we know for sure; cyber criminals attack corporate executives. The bigger the company, the higher the stakes. Mid-size companies may also be a target because those executives are time poor & money rich. It is exactly that space that I believe Investigators have their biggest opportunity to grow their business by offering this protection. You may have even had opportunity to conduct this research for a client or two in your own experience. But doing an OSINT sweep once a year may not be enough. I would suggest an ongoing program and will walk you through how to pitch this to your business clients.

Understanding the Treat

Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) ‘s recent report, “23rd Annual Global CEO Survey,” reveals that around 80% of CEOs have changed their online behavior due to potential risks. Corporate Espionage is alive and well and needs to be taken seriously as more and more employees overshare in social media. This allows for competitors to gain excellent insight into a vast array of information that would not otherwise be easily obtained. Banning employees from using social media at work has proven to be a nightmare and monitoring their social media internally has major privacy concerns. However, when approached correctly this type of monitoring is very valuable to any business regardless of their size.

The Challenge of Balance

What makes this tricky, is that the company still has the responsibility to keep their employees safe, protect assets and data, mitigate risk for threats of fraud and monitoring reputation. High level executives travel to areas of the world that do not share the same security measures we do in the United States. All of this coupled with cyber security risks and you have a recipe for a potential disaster. In the photo below through the software we use, a Global Awareness search allows us to see natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes, fires, hurricanes,) as well as public security incidents’ in real time. A company’s HR team may wish to set a global awareness query around the area of travel and within the appropriate time frame. Real time alerts are set in place for immediate notification of potential risk.

In a nutshell, there are proactive steps that can be put in motion to ensure the safety of everyone.

COVID-19 Fraud: South Miami

Emerging scams due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The scams have begun around COVID-19 and it appears to be just starting. When people are hit with diversity, sadly we begin to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. In fact, Americans have lost over 12 million dollars to Coronavirus scams already. The concentration in South Miami has been because of numerous complaints. This alerted the US Attorney’s Office to launch a task force in connection with local authorities to combat this growing problem.

Education is the best defense and law enforcement is doing just that with a series of community alerts, media reports and social media posts. Alerting the public to the risks early in an attempt to counteract the schemes.

In one of our latest blog posts, Crime Never Sleeps COVID-19 Online Schemes & Insurance Fraud, we alerted our Private Investigators to what we were seeing as emerging trends in the insurance industry. Below, is a set of scams targeting individuals.

Here are some examples of COVID-19 scams, reported by Sabrina Lolo, of West Palm Beach News:

  • Unlawful Hoarding and Price-Gouging: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has designated certain health and medical resources necessary to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic as “scarce,” including respirator masks, ventilators, and other medical protective equipment. These designated materials are subject to the hoarding prevention measures that trigger both criminal and civil remedies.
  • Testing Scams: Scammers are selling fake at-home test kits or going door-to-door performing fake tests for money.
  • Treatment Scams: Scammers are offering to sell fake cures, vaccines, and advice on unproven treatments for COVID-19.
  • Supply Scams: Scammers are creating fake shops, websites, social media accounts, and email addresses claiming to sell medical supplies currently in high demand, such as surgical masks. When consumers attempt to purchase supplies through these channels, fraudsters pocket the money and never provide the promised supplies.
  • Provider Scams: Scammers are also contacting people by phone and email, pretending to be doctors and hospitals that have treated a friend or relative for COVID-19, and demanding payment for that treatment.
  • Charity Scams: Scammers are soliciting donations for individuals, groups, and areas affected by COVID-19.
  • Phishing Scams and Cyber Intrusions: Scammers posing as national and global health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are sending phishing emails designed to trick recipients into clicking on a link or opening an attachment that downloads malware that steals the user’s credentials, such as usernames, credit card numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information usually stored in internet browsers.
  • App Scams: Scammers are also creating and manipulating mobile apps designed to track the spread of COVID-19 to insert malware that will compromise users’ devices and personal information.
  • Investment Scams: Scammers are offering online promotions on various platforms, including social media, claiming that the products or services of publicly traded companies can prevent, detect, or cure COVID-19, and that the stock of these companies will dramatically increase in value as a result.
  • Stimulus Check Scams: Scammers are contacting people over email and are telling them that their check, as part of the stimulus package responding to COVID-19, is already waiting for them and that all they need to do is to provide personal information, such as bank account numbers and Social Security Numbers, which are the key pieces of information needed to perpetrate identity theft.
  • Other scams include fraudsters claiming to work for the government or banks/credit cards and offering assistance for student loan relief, foreclosure or eviction relief, unemployment assistance, debt relief, and direct financial assistance, like government checks.

Anyone who believes they were a target or victim of fraud, or knows about any hoarding or price-gouging of critical medical supplies, is asked to report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 1-866-720-5721 or disaster@leo.gov.

Using Reverse Image in Your OSINT Research

When conducting OSINT research, don’t forget image searches, as they can reveal quite a bit. We have all heard the saying, ” A picture is worth a thousand words.” We understand its meaning and know it to be very true. However, when it comes to OSINT research, sometimes what is in the background of a picture is worth a million words!

A recent Netflix show comes to mind as I write this blog post. Have you seen The Tiger King yet? Some people can watch it, while others I have heard just can’t get through the series. At any rate, one thing I recall very well is how several social media posts worked in the favor of an investigation to find the fugitives who were on the run. The main character (who was on the run) and his husband posted many social media photos trying to make it look like they were in Mexico. Upon further attention, it was noticed that the background of the images made it very clear that they were indeed in Florida. Certain identifying clues led law enforcement to their exact location.

The more photos found when using OSINT research the better. Bing has an excellent built in option.

Bing’s Reverse Images

  1. Bing: Bing search engine has an image search that allows an upload of an image in the same way Google Image Search does. Below you will see what is produced when we uploaded the image on the left. All the images on the right are instantly populated.
Bing Reverse Image how to
Normal image search reveals a good amount of results.

If nothing comes up, try the cropping the image using the “visual search”. Let’s say we want to focus on one area of the image. The visual search allows you to crop the image in a way that may reveal different results.

Bing Visual Image as an additional search method.
Visual Image

You can see the difference between the two. This can be very helpful when you have a picture of someone in a public place. You may not be able to pinpoint exactly where they are. Using this Bing feature may produce more photos with an exact location.

Pinterest Image Search

  • Log into your Pinterest account.
  • Click on any pin in your home feed (or on any profile or board).
  • Click the icon in the bottom-right corner of the pinned image.
How Pinterest does search of photos
From Search Engine Journal

Simply click on the visual search icon, you can see everything else in Pinterest that is similar.

Instagram Has Over 95 Million Photos Uploaded Daily.

One of our recent blog posts discussed just how many photos are in the social media platform and how it can be used in investigation. In fact, we were recently able to help a client by identifying a person was at Walt Disney when they were trying to locate him to serve papers. It can be quite valuable!

Facial Recognition Apps

In the near future, facial recognition apps may be more readily available. Especially if companies like Clear AI has anything to say about it. An app that lets you identify anyone from a photo, and it is currently being used by law enforcement. Their mission, as stated on their website is:

Clearview AI is a new research tool used by law enforcement agencies to identify perpetrators and victims of crimes.

Clearview AI’s technology has helped law enforcement track down hundreds of at-large criminals, including pedophiles, terrorists and sex traffickers. It is also used to help exonerate the innocent and identify the victims of crimes including child sex abuse and financial fraud.

Using Clearview AI, law enforcement is able to catch the most dangerous criminals, solve the toughest cold cases and make communities safer, especially the most vulnerable among us.

What trick of the trade do you use?

Crime Never Sleeps- COVID-19 Online Schemes & Insurance Fraud

Sadly, in times of crisis, some people use it as an opportunity to make money. COVID-19 is not an exception to that rule, and the FBI is already seeing a rise of Coronavirus fraud schemes. The FBI is warning Americans to be especially careful during this pandemic hitting our country. Always check your sources when receiving an unusual email. Do not click any links that appear suspicious.

Insurance Fraud

As business owners and employees are starting to learn what is covered under insurance and what is not covered, panic is setting in. Couple the fact that many people are out of work for an infinite amount of time, desperation can set in. People begin to do things for money that they never would have under normal conditions. We found this to be true in the beginning of the Great Recession.

Insurance Fraud

According to to the FBI, “The total cost of insurance fraud (non-health insurance) is estimated to be more than $40 billion per year. That means Insurance Fraud costs the average U.S. family between $400 and $700 per year in the form of increased premiums.” This is something that affects all of us one way or another.

If past behaviors are an indicator, we know that we are most likely going to see a surge in insurance fraud. SIU Investigators are going to be overworked in the months ahead. A surge in slip and fall cases for example will occur. The claims are bound to pile up.

Online & Social Media Research

As a company who specializes in online research for fraud assessments, I can not emphasize enough how important it is to conduct your research as soon as possible. What is here today may be gone tomorrow . People will begin to clean up their social media posts.

social media Facebook

If you think that Google and Facebook are all you need to check, you could run the risk of losing your client or employer a lot of money. When steaks are as high as this, a deep web search will serve you best. That is because people love to share online. They may leave crumbs that lead you to the exact place you need to be.

In conclusion, it is an excellent time to get in front of your insurance clients to let them know you are there and ready to go if and when we start seeing fraud increase over the next months.

If it Can Happen to Amazon, it Can Happen To You

Social Media: The Industry Disrupter

Social media continues to be a major business disrupter. For the last decade most companies and brands have been working like crazy to figure it all out. From social media marketing to social hiring reports. How does it all work?

Which platform should we use to market? What is the ROI? How can we keep track of our online reputation? The waters get murky when it comes to hiring employees and screening their social accounts. Yet, so many HR professionals continue to conduct unethical searches and find themselves in compromising situations. Should we screen employees social media prior to hiring? How is that different from the background checks were already conducting? 


Just last week it was reported that an Amazon employee was fired for reporting that her supervisor instructed her to “scour social media on applicants to determine race and gender. ” She did not feel this was the correct way to do this, and notified management. She was terminated. The ex-employee has since then filed a lawsuit against Amazon for wrongful termination among other things.

Many times we hear HR executives say that they do check social media on applicants and don’t give it too much thought as to the legality of it all. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), HR execs recruit candidates for specific jobs using social media, up from 56 percent in 2011 and 34 percent in 2008. Using this as a recruitment strategy is different than using it to determine employment, however.

The Right Way to Conduct Social Media Background Checks

This varies from state to state, however for the most part be aware of the following red flags that are allowed under FCRA compliance:

Racist, Sexist, or Discriminatory Behavior
Sexually Explicit Material
Threats or Acts of Violence
Potentially Illegal Activity

Developing a social media policy for your company is a great first step. This way everyone is on the same page when it comes to remaining fair to all applicants.

Never ask for passwords.

Include this as part of your background check policy and clearly state it for all applicants to see and agree to.

Use an outside agency.

Reputation management and workplace safety are just two of the three top reasons companies seek out social media background checks.

At eChatter we use software that is FCRA compliant. Results generated by our staff are in line with federal and state specific laws. However, we don’t stop there. Avoid a PR nightmare by monitoring social media once employees are hired, to protect employees from toxic behavior in the workplace. What starts at the office, sometimes spills into social media and vise versa.

Human Resource Social Media Hiring Scan