Intelligence Project team members Maria Robson-Morrow, Katie Tucker, and Judit Gaspar were interviewed on the Business of Intelligence Podcast about their research into corporate intelligence professionals and services.

Demand for intelligence vendors is substantial and increasing. In 2022, global cyber threat intelligence was estimated to be a $4.93 billion industry, and U.S. security services was a whopping $48.1 billion. Geopolitical and security risk intelligence is an unquantified but essential and rapidly growing part of the story. But how do you know whether an intelligence vendor aligns with your company’s needs, risk tolerance, and ethics? The authors, from Harvard University’s Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project, have developed a database of 70 vendors that corporate intelligence professionals identified as informing their work. Their systematic analysis of this dynamic ecosystem revealed four key questions for corporate decision makers to ask in order to maximize their return on vendors.

Note: The authors have compiled a checklist accompanying this article, which can be viewed and downloaded from the Belfer Center’s website here.

As more and more corporate teams leverage private intelligence vendors to understand geopolitical and security operating conditions, it is critical for executives and their intelligence teams to ask the right questions. How should private sector entities ensure that intelligence vendors operating around the world aligns with their needs, risk tolerance, and ethics?

Early after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as Russian troops threatened Kyiv and Russian cruise missiles destroyed targets across the country, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Head of Ukrainian State Railways, received direct customer feedback that the bathrooms at one of his stations were filthy.

The widespread emergence of deepfakes—images and audio-visual elements created for purposes such as expression, play, or experimentation—raises key questions around ethics and policy. This Intelligence Project conference discussed ways to navigate these issues. 

The war in Ukraine was a wake-up call regarding the ability of non-state actors, such as Bellingcat, to glean valuable information from open-source data. On November 1, 2022, the Intelligence Project hosted a highly praised virtual discussion with private sector experts who tackle national security problems using publicly-available data and artificial intelligence.

Since its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been at the heart of supporting United States foreign policy and national security decision-making. From the early days of the Cold War to Russia’s war against Ukraine, the CIA has been a critical instrument of foreign intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. However, the CIA is often misunderstood, as its own work and history, particularly its successes, are rarely seen by the public. To help unpack this storied history, and in honor of the agency’s 75th anniversary, on September 16, 2022, former directors, officers, scholars, students, and the public gathered to discuss the past, present, and future of the agency. 

In the past, strategic surprise has often stemmed from a failure of imagination. Most intelligence failures are rooted in a lack of foresight or early warning of impending events. Blue sky thinking seeks to prevent these surprises by devoting more attention not just to known risks and likely scenarios, but also to low probability, high impact events. In an unprecedented step in forging ongoing global collaboration, 129 global experts gathered in Amman, Jordan, in December 2021. The conference was held under the auspices of Jordan’s Aqaba Process and facilitated by representatives from the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project. Attendees included intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers, private sector practitioners, and academics representing 29 countries, 5 continents, and 68 government and private sector organizations. Through presentations and discussion under Chatham House Rules, the conference facilitated an open exchange of ideas on the possible next big threats from terrorism and on strategies for moving forward.

The field of private sector intelligence can often be misinterpreted on the surface level as espionage, guards and gates. Its road to professionalization has been a long one and is still evolving. Maria Robson Morrow spoke with Fred Burton on the Ontic Protective Intelligence podcast on her dissertation research on building a better understanding of private sector intelligence's role in security risk mitigation and business decision-making. The conversation touches on her latest research on pathways to entry, the impact of intelligence cooperation, and camaraderie in mitigating security risks. The author also shares what surprised her most in her research and what she plans on digging into next.

If you woke up to news of a massive cyber or Pearl Harbor-type attack on the U.S., you would want to know that a solid national security structure and plan was in place. On May 11, the Intelligence Project and Applied History Project hosted a conference to imagine a new National Security Act to replace the current act of 1947.