In the lead-up to the highly anticipated Close Protection Conference in Dallas this December, we had the privilege of sitting down with Trinity Davis, a renowned expert and the Senior Vice-President of Strategic Business Development at 360 Privacy. With the conference just around the corner, we delve into the world of digital executive protection, exploring the evolving strategies and challenges that define this critical aspect of the profession.
At this year’s Close Protection Conference in Dallas, you will be presenting a very interesting topic. Can you give us a sneak-peek into your presentation and explain the concept of Digital Executive Protection?
Digital executive protection is our way of making clients a ‘hard target’ – meaning we specialize in securing the digital footprint of those we serve to protect them from online threats. In other words, they’re hard to exploit. Now we’re aiming to take our program one step further to protect our clients, and those protecting them, with our latest initiative.
Our new course focuses on ‘Protect the Protector’ – geared towards securing and hardening those that surround our clients. You can think of this as solutions for their unique support system, whether that be family members, executive assistants, house staff, or the executive protection team. Whoever it may be, these groups are just as likely to be exploited as well, putting the client at risk.
The goal is to form them into a hard target digitally as well and eliminate intel pivot points online that enable a threat actor to use their personal identifiable information (PII) or publicly available information (PAI) that most people willingly giving out, such as geolocation to cause reputational harm, formulate a physical attack, or commit fraud.
Can you elaborate on the specific strategies and tactics used to “harden” the client and their inner circle in the context of Digital Executive Protection?
Our methodology at 360 Privacy is both rational and proactive. What we want to do is eliminate connections that would lead to an information leak. We all have cell phones, laptops, social media, and countless other connected devices, and while we love the advancement of today’s technology, these same quality-of-life devices are building out our electronic pattern of life.
When – not if – threat actors are able to get a hold of that electronic pattern of life, such as where you are, who you are with, where you’ve been and where you are living, their job becomes a lot easier. We’re determined to take back control. It takes time and resources to exploit or attack a human or an organization, so our job is to make sure an attacker is forced to use more time, energy, and resources on their path to exploitation that they eventually move on to a softer target or organization that is less prepared instead.
Finally, is there anything you are especially looking forward to in December in Dallas? What is a must for you at the Close Protection Conference?
Aside from seeing close friends and old colleagues in this rapidly growing industry, we are looking forward to the next evolution of full-spectrum digital executive protection. We’re so proud of how our industry is adapting to modern threats and are excited to expand the digital protections typically provided to an executive or family onto the executive support structure.
We look forward to getting their initial reaction and feedback on the value we add. If employed correctly, these measures will greatly strengthen the overall security posture and operational footprint of those we work to protect.
