Personal Reputation

SCENARIO: Admiral A

It is a sobering and ironic reality that the high-ranking government officials that guide our domestic and foreign policies can become the target of individuals who seek to harm them. Just a decade ago, the lives of these officials, and even their identities, would be relatively easy to keep hidden from the global public. The Internet, however, is the great equalizer and acts as a powerful tool to help put high-ranking individuals on the world radar. One of these men is someone we will call “Admiral A.”

As in so many cases, it just depends on the viewpoint. Admiral A. is certainly a hero to most, a United States Navy four-star admiral who currently serves as Commander for Special Operations Command (SOCOM). In fact, in December 2011, Time Magazine profiled him as the runner-up for “Person of the Year”. Admiral A. is credited for organizing and executing a large-scale military operation that resulted in the apprehension and assassination of the leader of a notorious crime syndicate. With the death of this leader quickly came the outcry of several of his faithful followers, prompting one terrorist to seek violent revenge. Using the power and reach of the internet, this terrorist educated himself about his new target: Admiral A.

It didn’t take very long for the hostile individual to uncover some key information about Admiral A. and his family: The Admiral was married with three children, his oldest son was a captain in the Air Force, his second son was completing a Ph.D., and his youngest, Lauren, was a third-year college student. Often is the case that a hostile—knowing the risk for going after the target directly, or wishing to inflict as much emotional pain as possible—will target family members. Lauren appeared to be the most vulnerable and easily accessible.

Using LinkedIn, the hostile located Lauren’s profile, which revealed her high school, college, and that she completed a study-abroad program in Italy. The hostile proceeded to the University’s student directory and obtained detailed personal information including her phone number, personal website, school-assigned email address, place of work, and physical work address. Other University-related documents revealed her mobile phone number and the name of her dormitory on campus.

Personal social media information saturating sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the like can have the opposite effect of their intended purpose of fun and networking: they can be used to harm high-ranking individuals and their families. Young ones can be particularly high risk because of their tendency to heavily engage in social media networking activities in the online space, and because of their inability to recognize or appreciate the dangers. Terrorists will certainly find a young woman like Lauren’s whereabouts, and could proceed to inflict physical and psychological damage.

As a top-ranking official or an entity sworn to protect that individual, you must always have a plan of action. By using iClipse personnel and tools, we mitigate any threat for harm by monitoring all personally-identifiable information available online. And as a reputation management provider, we believe that you must be proactive in your approach to reconciling safety in conjunction with projected career paths. In other words, don’t wait for high-ranking or high-visibility officials to be targeted simply because they were doing their duty; instead, keep them ahead of the safety curve so they can continue to do their duty free of concern for their own safety or that of their family.