There are practices you and personnel in your organization can use to reduce the potential of becoming involved in a terrorist incident or becoming an intelligence target. Awareness that you may be a target is fundamental to countering any technique. For example, when traveling abroad, minimize the profile which advertises you are from the United States. Do not wear clothing which clearly sets you out as an American. Do not carry a briefcase, pen or notepad marked with your organization's logo. Carry your laptop computer in a case which does not look like a conventional laptop case and keep the hard drive and floppy disks on your person rather than in your hotel room.

Ensure that you and the personnel in your organization can distinguish between the honest inquirer and the "social engineer" who should be referred to security. Make your personnel aware of potential triggers for terrorist activity, such as anniversary dates significant to terrorists as well as current warnings issued by terrorist organizations deemed credible by the FBI can reduce vulnerability.

The threat to computer and telecommunication systems has increased dramatically in recent years. This threat takes on a variety of forms and comes from adversarial organizations to disgruntled employees and teenage hackers. Timely notification of the latest intrusion techniques and the latest virus detected "in the wild" can give you an edge in protecting your systems.

INTELLIGENCE AND TERRORIST VULNERABILITIES

Anyone can be vulnerable to intelligence collection activities or terrorist attack.
Classified U.S. Government information is sought by intelligence services of nations who view themselves as adversaries. The secrets of the American economy have also become attractive targets of intelligence services because the cost of economic espionage is cheaper than research and development. Intelligence services are extraordinarily sophisticated and have substantial resources to carry out their missions. They train their personnel to acquire information clandestinely so their targets do not know it has been compromised. Once a nation or corporation believes its secrets have been compromised, it makes changes to minimize damage; therefore, intelligence services conceal their operations to maximize their efforts.

While public acts of violence are used by terrorists to attempt to coerce governments, the activities conducted by terrorist organizations up to the time of the attack are done clandestinely. Terrorist organizations usually lack the sophistication and training of an intelligence service; however, some have received both training and funding from state sponsors and can conduct operations with sufficient effectiveness to cause tragic results.

How do you know whether you or your organization are susceptible to the scrutiny and attack of these adversarial organizations? And how do you reduce these vulnerabilities? Any U.S. person, corporation or institution with access to information that is restricted can be a target of an intelligence service. In today's world, any U.S. person, corporation or institution is a potential target of a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. Because these adversarial organizations carry out their activities clandestinely, the likelihood of knowing you are being actively targeted is remote. However, a key to reducing vulnerability is knowing and countering common techniques used by adversarial organizations which can minimize or even eliminate their opportunity for success. If adversarial organizations believe the effort is too great or the risk is too high, they will look for another target.