A client of ours, a Security Training Supervisor at a federal financial institution in the Midwest, called to chat.  They have been using Chameleon’s Predictive Profiling Online course as part of their curriculum for about a year now, and he called to tell me how pleased he is with the program.

Tell me more, I begged.

This is what he liked:

• The course information is taught using actual events and real situations via videos or in abundant reference materials.  The students aren’t given purely hypothetical scenarios but real ones that help drive home the point that there are real threats out there.  The supplementary background newspaper and magazine articles and videos place the ideas in a real life context which helps bring the ideas home for the students.

• This emphasis on the need for increasing threat awareness, and the way the course breaks down the reasons, helps shift his security personnel mentality away from “it won’t happen here” to a more proactive attitude.

• The security methods provided in the course are from a security-driven point of view, rather than a law enforcement one.  Many members of his staff come from a policing background and while they are terrific, there are important differences in approach that are carefully explained in the course.

• The Predictive Profiling course challenges assumptions and culture-driven stereotypes, making for a more realistic view of the threat.

Feel free to contact me with your own comments about Predictive Profiling Online.  You haven’t seen it?  Check out the demo at the bottom of this page link.  It’s always nice to hear good things but also important to get feedback on how we can continue to improve the course.

Some subjects do lend themselves to a classroom setting: philosophy, statistics and literature to name a few.  I can learn what I need to about Immanuel Kant, calculating a standard deviation and the collected work of Tolstoy without leaving my seat.  But other subjects cannot be learned nearly as well without application and practice:  things like brain surgery, rifle assembly and knitting come to mind.  Wait, let me add another: developing an effective and efficient, threat-based Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Security.

Even if I were creating an SOP that related only to securing my beloved new laptop, I would still be compelled to get out of my chair and walk around and even … venture outside.  Let’s say the SOP is meant to mitigate actual threat to my lovely laptop.  As the enemy, how would I go about stealing or harming said laptop?  Perhaps I would infiltrate as the cleaning lady or the DHL guy to get access.  Maybe I would intentionally break the laptop, necessitating that it be repaired; repaired right into malicious hands.  But whatever the attack plan, it would require intelligence gathering, procurement of supplies, a solid cover, a modicum of interaction with people, etc.

Thus in order to do a good job of securing my laptop (or anything else) I need to experientially understand that threat – from the outside in.  I need to understand how the enemy operates and not just from a textbook.  Nothing compares to taking on a (simulated) adversarial role and seeing for oneself how easy or difficult it is to: gain access to a location, get (socially engineered) information from someone about a given security framework, or conduct effective (unnoticeable) surveillance on a target.  Turn that information around … and you have a great SOP, based on mitigating actual threats.

So where might a security professional obtain this kind of in-the-trenches, hands on training?  It just so happens that Chameleon Associates is launching a new and very unique course: Homeland Security Laboratory: Design, Test and Experience the Israeli Security Model.  In Israel, where threat-oriented SOPs are ubiquitously in use, students will learn the methods for designing a threat-oriented SOP, and then test it in the field.  Students return home with a toolkit for securing their own protected environment, vis-a-vis technology, access control, surveillance detection, communications between rings of security, and more.

For complete information about the HLS Lab course, please link here.

SCENE ONE: A man stands in a border crossing line. His turn arrives to speak with the border officer who notices that amongst the traveler’s belongings is a doll.

SECURITY OFFICER

Why do you have this doll in your luggage?

TRAVELER

It is a gift for my niece.

SECURITY OFFICER

I see. What’s your niece’s name?

TRAVELER

(hesitating and a bit confused)

Ah. . . .

SCENE TWO: A man stands in a border crossing line. His turn arrives to speak with the border officer who notices that amongst the traveler’s belongings is a doll.

SECURITY OFFICER

Why do you have this doll in your luggage?

TRAVELER

It is a gift for my niece.

SECURITY OFFICER

I see. What’s your niece’s name?

TRAVELER

Her name is Ella, and she’s really into princesses. In fact, she knows the names of all the princesses of Disney like, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty,Jasmine, Belle, Mulan. Her 9^th birthday is next Monday and this is what she said she wants as a gift.

SCENE THREE: A man stands in a border crossing line. His turn arrives to speak with the border officer who notices that amongst the traveler’s belongings is a doll.

SECURITY OFFICER

Why do you have this doll in your luggage?

TRAVELER

It is a gift for my niece.

OFFICER

I see. What’s your niece’s name?

TRAVELER

Ella.

In Scene One, the Traveler is confused because he either didn’t prepare a cover or it has been blown. In Scene Two, the Traveler is presenting a rehearsed cover and talking too much as a result. In Scene Three, we depict a (probably) legitimate uncle carrying a gift for his niece.

Even the best actor in the world can be sidetracked when dialogue moves from scripted to improvisational. As it happens, life is mostly improv. This is the core challenge to working with a cover. Your disguise is in place, you have memorized a hundred details of your assumed identity, and then bam! someone asks a question that did not appear in the dossier you studied. The reason it’s not in the dossier is because in the course of a brief, open-ended conversation, everyone asks different questions, often reflecting their own life experience.

When preparing to attack a target, a terrorist (or criminal) must devote a certain amount of time to building a cover. He understands that the more that is known about the target’s operational environment, the better the chances for success. He also knows he needs the right cover to execute the attack. Getting good intelligence inevitably necessitates some interaction with humans and humans, thank goodness, are a wild card.  Using Security Questioning leverages this advantage effectively and efficiently.

Chameleon signed a teaming agreement with Chartrand Fortin Labelle Solutions inc. (CFL) a Quebec based consulting firm specialized in public and corporate security. Under the new agreement CFL will translate and deliver Chameleon courses to the French Speaking market.

Last week (June 22-23, 2010), CFL and Chameleon jointly delivered a Predictive Profiling and Security Questioning seminar in Laval, Quebec. The seminar was a great success and it was attended by government and corporate security officials from across Canada. The audience received practical tools to assist them in the implementation of a Predictive Profiling based security system. A system that makes extensive use of security questioning, red teaming and adversarial thinking to maintain a high level of efficiency and effectiveness.

Clients who seek Chameleon Courses in French should contact CFL or Chameleon Associates for more information.

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Chameleon a conclu une entente avec Chartrand Fortin Labelle solutions inc. (CFL), une firme conseil basée au Québec, spécialisée en sûreté corporative et sécurité publique.  Selon les conditions de cette entente, CFL se chargera d’effectuer la traduction et de donner la formation de Chameleon au marché francophone.

Les 22 et 23 juin 2010, CFL et Chameleon se sont associés afin d’offrir la formation sur le Predictive Profiling and Security Questioning à Laval, Québec.  La formation a été une réussite.  Plusieurs responsables gouvernementaux et professionnels de sécurité corporative de différentes régions du Canada y ont assisté.  Les participants ont appris des techniques et ont reçu une gamme d’outils pratiques pour les aider à mettre en œuvre un système de sécurité basé sur le Predictive Profiling.  Ce système se sert du questionnement de sécurité, du red team et de la façon de penser de l’adversaire afin d’assurer un haut degré d’efficacité.

Les clients intéressés à suivre cette formation en français peuvent contacter CFL ou Chameleon Associates afin d’obtenir de l’information supplémentaire.

Chameleon Associates provided the US Army 5/2 Stryker Brigade with Predictive Profiling and Field Intelligence Training as part of their Language Enabled Soldier Program. Parts of the training were conducted in Arabic.  The training provided soldiers with tools to identify suspicion indicators in high risk environments. Here is the case study for the LES program which includes Predictive Profiling training as presented by Col. Tunnell, Commander of the 5/2 Stryker Brigade:

http://www.chameleonassociates.com/Predictive_Profiling_LES_US_Army.pdf

Predictive Profiling becomes especially important to a soldier working in an environment that is not familiar to him. Predictive Profiling is much easier when one knows the norms in his surroundings, but when facing am unfamiliar culture, language and environment Profiling becomes a lot harder. This is exactly the situation a soldier facesbeing deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq. Predictive Profiling is as much a counter insurgency tool as it is counterterrorist or security methofology.

The BBC2 has this month released a new documentary called How safe are our Skies? Detroit Flight 253, about the failed Christmas Terrorist Bombing on Northwest Airlines. Chameleon’s Amotz Brandes is featured in the documentary. As we all know, on Christmas Day 2009, a 23-year-old passenger on Northwest airlines attempted to detonate a device containing military-grade explosive PETN, while on descent into Detroit International Airport.  This excellent production includes eyewitness testimony and in-depth expert analysis on how the bomber Umar Abdulmutallab slipped under intelligence radar and evaded three sets of airport security.  It traces Abdulmutallab’s student days in London, his time spent with Al Qaeda in Yemen, and his journey to the USA.  The documentary attempts to understand what security services knew about him before he boarded?  What would have happened to the plane if the bomb had detonated?   What lessons have we learned and how safe is it to fly, today?  This documentary is timely, interesting and provocative – worth a look.

To view the entire documentary on youtube lick here

Security Questioning is one of our most popular course modules.  Everyone wants more of it.  In response to the demand, we are coming out with a new Advanced Security Questioning course.  It will focus on enhancing students’ communication skills when interacting with suspicious people and situation.  Security Questioning is the most effective tool in a security system, given the fact that it is the only offensive tool.  Regardless of the security system you may have in place, all elements of that system are defensive.  For example, the x-ray machine detects the tools used by an attacker.  In contrast, questioning puts the attacker on the defensive and you on the offensive.

The course features an advanced forms of security questioning which includes undercover questioning, conducting investigative interviews (applies to internal security incidents such as potential fraud or info leaks), and questioning for HR screening.

For those of you who have taken our predictive Profiling class, this course is a natural next step.  It supports the “determine” factor in the detect-determine-deploy proactive security process.  Our next  open seminar in Advanced Security Questioning, is in Phoenix, AZ on April 27 – 28.

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We are is pleased to announce the launch of our new Predictive Profiling Online Course. This very interactive course allows students to learn about the science behind the art of Predictive Profiling. The course is filled with interactive sessions, quizzes and other exciting learning tools. It is available under an individual license or an annual organizational license.

We are planning to create more interactive online courses in the months to come and build on the success we currently have with Predictive Profiling Course.