We deploy tools to actively monitor chatter that may be particularly negative or threatening to our clients. This includes the monitoring of both social and traditional media and other open source platforms. We invest 15% of our gross profit in technology every year, which allows us in turn to buy state-of-the-art open source analytics platforms. We then alert our clients to these via our specialist alerting system, or our risk platform Cascade.

For our threat intelligence offering, this can also involve the monitoring of geopolitical events. As part of a full crisis and continuity plan for a large multinational in South East Asia, our threat intelligence team mapped out and assessed the potential events that would likely lead to its eventual activation. In this case, we reviewed and quantified the likely escalation of incidents relating to a range of potential catastrophic scenarios in the region. This included various conflict and civil war risks, instability, natural disasters and the emergence of a pandemic from larger countries such as China.

This process showed its value with the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 strain of coronavirus: this had already been planned for as part of the process, and the key risk indicators that we developed in collaboration with our client reacted well. The intelligence we provided meant that the incident and crisis management teams were preparing from the end of December 2019 for the arrival of this strain to other parts of the region, allowing them a crucial longer lead time.