Security recruitment in the digital age is the topic for Nick Clemons, Development Director of Digital Reconnaissance Ltd, which offers staff screening services.
You’ve just met Carl to see if he’s a potential candidate for a security vacancy you have to fill. The client requires an experienced manned guard for a high-profile office nearby. Carl is 35 years old, divorced with three children and night shifts suit his circumstances ideally. He has worked for several security firms in the past but now needs the extra money that a more responsible role and night shifts could provide for him. He is a pleasant guy with a strong physical presence and would be a good deterrent in the location you have in mind.
What you don’t know about Carl is that he has very strong far right views and has joined several groups on Facebook, Instagram and other more specific and sinister websites where he regularly posts racist comments and views against certain ethnic and religious groups. Even if you had looked at his social media profiles, you would have not found anything untoward as Carl’s membership of these groups is all under a false name.
Carl also has a fairly serious cocaine habit and regularly buys drugs from one of a number of websites on the dark web. He has found a reliable site where he is confident in the quality of the drugs he buys. He spends about £300 per month on drugs and this spending has been increasing steadily for the past 12 months. He rarely takes drugs at work and on the whole his drug habit has not yet affected his ability to work. Most importantly to Carl, nobody is aware of his habit and he has never been caught.
Carl’s other pastime is flaming – an increasing activity of posting distressing, hateful and aggressive comments online that is often far more extreme than trolling. He is a member of several websites where competitions exist for the most significant or distressing reactions to the posts. Carl’s greatest achievement was over 800 comments to a post he made mocking a girl’s suicide. He gains nothing from this other than notoriety amongst the flaming community and points in the league table.
With an increasing spending on drugs, Carl has started to look at where on the internet he could raise extra money for disclosing of sensitive information. Being in security, he is often privy to personal and sometimes financial details of clients for which criminals would pay well. He hasn’t done anything about it yet, and may never do so, but it’s reassuring for him that he knows what to do if he needs to.
Perhaps the client will never find out about Carl’s interests. He may keep them totally separate from his job. He may never need or have the guts to steal and leak client details and therefore his secrets may never come to light. Even if that is so, would you have recommended Carl for this job if you had known about just some of his online lifestyle? Would you have recommended him for any job? Would you have been glad to turn him away, safe in the knowledge that you were protecting your clients, and your own business from what might happen if any of his interests had come to light?
What would the conversation be like with your client if any of this information comes to light?
Carl is, of course, a fictional character. His interests are, however, entirely real. There are tens of thousands of people whose online activity shows an uncanny resemblance to those of Carl. These people are not unemployable time-wasters nor criminal masterminds but people with families and jobs that have become drawn into, or intrigued by, a dark side of the online world. Any previous perception of reality has led them into a very disturbing online lifestyle.
An employer or recruiter cannot hope to uncover such knowledge without expert help. With what we believe is the first largely automated search of its kind, the Cyber Protocol Screening check by Digital Reconnaissance has been designed to meet this increasing need to protect businesses and employers. For a free discussion about how this screening works and for more information please contact Nick Clemons on 07521 914406 or [email protected].
