WASHINGTON, D.C. (SecurityInfoWatch) — Revelations about an extramarital affair involving Nvidia Founder and CEO Jensen Huang and a businesswoman reportedly suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence have raised questions about the vulnerability of corporate executives to a longstanding espionage tactic known as the “honey trap.”
Such operations are not necessarily about stealing sensitive documents. Foreign intelligence services may cultivate relationships with corporate executives to gather information, influence business decisions or gain access to other individuals within an organization. These activities can occur outside the reach of conventional corporate security controls.
The challenge for corporate security leaders extends beyond detecting suspicious relationships. It also involves establishing counterintelligence safeguards for senior executives and ensuring that potential threats can be investigated independently, even when the CEO is involved.
SecurityInfoWatch asked Greg Rinckey, founding partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC, former U.S. Army military intelligence officer and Army judge advocate, to explain how these operations work, the vulnerabilities they exploit and the counterintelligence measures corporate security programs should have in place.
How do honey trap operations typically unfold?
Rinckey: A modern honey trap is better understood as a patient, cultivated relationship than as a one-night setup, and the relationship need not be romantic.
These operations typically move through three stages. The first is spotting and assessment. The foreign intelligence agency identifies an executive with access to classified and/or proprietary trade secret information and influence and looks for something it can work with, such as isolation, a difficult marriage, ego, financial pressure or heavy travel.
The second stage is an approach engineered to look organic. Common cover roles include an executive as a customer, distributor or partner, an investor, a conference organizer, an academic, a journalist or a recruiter. A genuine business relationship is the best cover available because it gives the two people a legitimate reason to meet, travel and communicate.
The third stage is development through elicitation. Elicitation is the strategic use of conversation to obtain non-public information without the target realizing it, and it relies on techniques such as flattery, flirting, feigned ignorance, deliberate false statements meant to provoke a correction, and offering information to get information.
Leverage may eventually follow, but often the foreign agent never needs to use it because the target simply talks.
