The Security Clearance Careers podcast (AKA ClearedCast) welcomes Christopher Burgess, contributor to the ClearanceJobs news site on intelligence, security and espionage topics. On this episode, we chat about insider threats, traveling abroad safely for missions, and other espionage current events.
Burgess is an author and speaker, and served 30+ years at one of the three letter agencies, living and working in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Europe, and Latin America. He is the founder of securelytravel.com, and we discuss your top-secret checklist for traveling abroad and handling classified information.
Spotting Insider threats
Burgess shares some of the telltale signs that an insider is among you, and how companies can bolster their insider threat management to be the most prepared for an incident. While trust is a big ingredient companies should incorporate, Burgess breaks down a list of defense contractors that broke that trust recently. Reality Winner was a very popular case where trust was broken: she stole classified information, shoved it in her pantyhose, and walked out of the NSA. A priority of any organization should be to invest in your employees, which will help to make them your frontline of defense against insider threats.
Sometimes espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering go hand in hand with insider threats as they obtain confidential information.
Burgess walks us through current events & news from everything on the Chinese surveillance balloon and how the different intelligence disciplines are at play (GEOINT, ELINT, MASINT, SIGINT), to other espionage headlines like 600+ Russian intelligence and diplomatic personnel expelled from different countries, or how the BND intelligence service in Germany was really collecting information for Russia.
3 TIPS FOR TRAVELING OCONUS AS A Security CLEARANCE HOLDER
Along with being an expert on insider threats and being a junky for espionage stories, Burgess is also a proponent for OPSEC and traveling securely. While there are specific tactics a clearance holder can manage as they travel OCONUS, programming should start with the company through a travel brief about the specific company an employee will be traveling to.
- Register your itinerary with the State Department. The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) is a free service to allow citizens that are traveling abroad to enroll their trip with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.
- Get a travel briefing from your FSO, and do your own research on what language needs you will have.
- Make copies of all your important documents (passport, birth cert, etc.) and keep with a trusted person in the U.S.
Whether you are traveling abroad or working on U.S. soil, it’s important to remain vigilant and keep threats at the forefront of your mind.
