‘The easiest way to penetrate a billion-dollar company’: Ex-FBI operative on how spies target CEOs
“Sometimes the easiest way to penetrate a billion-dollar company is to get close to the person running it,” Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterintelligence operative, told Fortune.
Key points
- Nvidia’s board said Sunday that it had no reason to believe company secrets or national security had been compromised, but that its independent investigation, led by a committee of independent directors, would examine all available information.
- Much of his training focuses on overseas travel, including the risks of electronic eavesdropping in hotel rooms and on the way to meetings, intelligence collection targeting their devices, and interpreters who may work for intelligence services.
- Jensen Huang’s exit from Nvidia has put a rarely discussed risk in plain view: for a CEO, a new business contact or a budding romance may come from someone more interested in the company’s secrets.
Peter Warmka, a former CIA senior intelligence officer who now trains executives through his Counterintelligence Institute, told Fortune his sessions cover who might target a company, what they want, and how they approach employees and contractors.
Additional details
- How boards can intervene when the CEO won’t listen When a CEO dismisses a warning, someone else needs a way to act.
- For O’Neill, protecting executives should include teaching them to recognize manipulation—and giving others a way to intervene when the boss won’t listen.
- The company has lost about $450 billion in market value since Huang’s admission.
- The warning signs can be subtle, O’Neill said: a relationship that moves unusually quickly, persistent questions about sensitive business matters, requests to meet influential colleagues, or encouragement to keep secrets.
- O’Neill argues their security training should teach them how someone might use a personal relationship to get closer to those assets.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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