Digital executive protection is a strategic imperative for CEOs
In this interview with Help Net Security, Brian Hill, Field CISO, Client Advisory for BlackCloak, explains how attackers reach companies through the personal lives of executives. He describes a case where a draft report sat in an executive’s personal email with no multifactor authentication, and traders acted on it before the news went public.
He also covers a home network left open after an AV technician swapped cables, malware planted through hotel Wi-Fi, and why he thinks deepfake defense should verify the person, not the message. Companies lack the tools to close this gap.
When you walk into a room of skeptical CISOs, what is the case study or data point you reach for to prove that an executive’s personal life is a viable path into the enterprise? Has the proof gotten easier or harder to demonstrate over the last few years?
It’s unfortunately not hard to demonstrate the real-world impact of incidents like doxxing, or executives being physically targeted as a result of their online behaviors, and exploits that penetrate weakly secured home networks and personal accounts. These types of attacks are more frequent and also more publicly visible.
One example I often point to is where a company noticed suspicious stock trade activity taking place well in advance of a planned public announcement of its market traction. The team reached out to BlackCloak to see if we could help them determine what was happening. Upon thorough assessment, we determined that the culprit was an unknowing executive who had a draft of the company’s annual report stored in their personal email account, which had been accessed by cybercriminals. Once in the executive’s personal email, the hackers were able to get a copy of the report and weaponize it for insider information. Unfortunately, this leader had no multifactor authentication set up on their personal email, which made it easy for hackers to exploit.
This scenario is a good demonstration of how access to an executive’s personal email account can easily translate into actions taken against a company and compromise its governance and compliance efforts, which can result in serious financial and reputational damage.
Most security teams have spent a decade hardening the corporate perimeter. Has that success quietly pushed attackers toward the softer personal targets, meaning the better corporate security gets, the more your category matters? Or is that too convenient a story?
It’s not a convenient story; it’s a tactical reality. Whether corporate defenses are solid or not is not really the issue. The issue is that vulnerabilities exist in the personal digital lives of high-profile business leaders, and cybercriminals know that those vulnerabilities give them a clear path into the enterprise – so they take it.
For example, a business executive came to BlackCloak after being impersonated by an attacker through near-identical, spoofed personal email addresses, which the criminals used to access the company’s internal accounts. The erroneous email address and online activity ultimately went public, which led to the executive being accused of illicit activity. These digital attacks unfortunately turned physical when the leader and her family were physically assaulted on the streets of NYC, with the assailants threatening to launch a PR attack through the media the following morning.
What was the result? She came to BlackCloak for assistance, and our dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC) immediately stepped in to provide rapid incident response. We hardened her personal devices and initiated data broker removal to scrub her exposed personal information from the web, eliminating the false data linking her to the email. By removing the attacker’s leverage and visibility into her personal digital life, we neutralized the threat before the PR attack could be executed, solving a crisis where traditional corporate defenses couldn’t reach.
Walk me through an attack that started somewhere nobody on a security team would think to look. A kid’s gaming console, a smart thermostat, a spouse’s compromised email. What does that chain of discovery and mitigation look like?
The chain of discovery and mitigation in a home environment rarely requires a complex zero-day exploit; it usually stems from a simple overlooked human error.
While conducting a routine remote penetration test of a CEO’s private home network, the BlackCloak team identified an open port through which anyone could have accessed their cameras, alarm system, home automation, and every device connected to the network, posing a significant digital and physical security risk.
Upon further investigation, we determined that the culprit was a simple mistake: an AV company had come out to fix their entertainment system and accidentally swapped out the wrong cables, exposing the entire network to compromise. Working directly with the CEO, we fixed the cable issue, closed the vulnerable ports, and established ongoing testing to ensure the home environment remained a dead end for attackers.
An internal security team has oversight of corporate assets. The moment the risk lives on a personal device or account, that authority evaporates. Is your service filling a genuine gap, or is it a symptom of companies offloading a problem they would rather not own?
It fills a fundamental enterprise gap. It’s not that companies would rather not own this issue; it’s that they don’t have the tools or resources to handle it, particularly with the ongoing corporate security issues they continuously address. As a result, there is a gap across nearly all enterprises.
For several reasons, corporations can’t and don’t have visibility into the personal lives of executives. BlackCloak extends enterprise-grade protection to executives and their families, adding zero burden to internal teams and maintaining a clean separation between corporate risk and personal privacy.
In one case, a CEO and their spouse noticed personal devices behaving oddly following international travel and a stay at a luxury hotel. Through breach analysis, our team identified that a nation-state had deployed malware on their devices via the hotel’s public Wi-Fi network while their devices were connected to it. BlackCloak immediately secured the spouse’s tablet and the CEO’s personal phone, removing the malware and implementing advanced privacy controls to harden the devices and prevent future network-based interceptions. This is an example where an internal security team would likely not have found this issue, given it took place on their personal devices during personal travel.
AI attacks and deepfakes are growing in sophistication by the day and are much harder to detect. How can executives protect themselves from these sinister threats?
It’s a great question. While many companies across industries are trying to engineer the latest and greatest deepfake detection technology, we’re not in that race. Solving this requires a practical solution anchored to the person and their device, not the message. The trusted contact responds to an authentication request at the moment of decision, on a channel the attacker doesn’t control, to validate phone calls, video meetings, emails, WhatsApp messages, texts, and other communications in real time. This is what our Impersonation Protection feature addresses – and it works seamlessly in real time through the BlackCloak app.
Five years out, do you expect personal digital protection to become a standard line item in executive compensation packages, the way a car or security detail once was? Or does this stay a discretionary perk for the paranoid few?
Digital Executive Protection is already being treated as a strategic imperative rather than a luxury. CISOs and other C-suite executives now understand that leaving the personal digital lives of business leaders exposed is a gap in security they can’t afford to overlook.
Attackers are not just after an executive’s password; they’re after the company’s intellectual property, brand reputation, and financial stability. Because of the widespread availability of and unrestricted access to online personal data, business leaders and their families – when left unprotected – can easily be targets of real-world physical attacks. As these threats escalate, we’ll continue to see a rise in organizations implementing Digital Executive Protection as part of their corporate cybersecurity initiatives. The need to bridge the gaps between cyber and physical security and personal and professional protection, and to integrate executive risk into enterprise-wide risk management strategies, is becoming the norm – something that will not go away any time soon.
What is something you want the industry to know about executive targeting that they often misunderstand?
Companies understand the risks and the repercussions when executives are targeted in their personal lives. However, a common misconception is that addressing this problem requires a heavy lift operationally and a tremendous burden on an already over-extended security team. But that’s not the case.
By partnering with a concierge provider that upholds individual privacy and corporate playbooks, the issues that compromise business leaders and their family members in their personal lives, on their personal devices, whether in their homes or while on the road, can be easily overcome. This is the best and most effective way to safeguard high-profile individuals and corporate assets from malicious actors, while protecting a company’s financial and reputational standing.
Impersonation protection: How to protect your executives when the truth isn’t clear