By Sheldon Greaves
The story of the coronavirus and the intelligence community has mainly focused on how they delivered numerous warnings about COVID-19 to the Trump administration, only to be ignored. This will come as a surprise to no one who has been paying the slightest bit of attention, but now the nation has to deal with the consequences, including endangering national security.
Apart from the obvious current and future economic damage generally, there are impacts on the intelligence community. Like everyone else, more of them are working from home instead of the proverbial cubicles in the various alphabet soup agencies’ offices. One disadvantage is that it’s a pretty safe bet that not every worker’s internet connection is secure. Putting a virus blocker on your machine will stop most threats, but when your adversary is specifically targeting you, and has the resources of a major government, that virus blocker won’t do squat.
Implications of Financial Hardship
Many workers face reduced hours and income. This creates a problem if you hold a security clearance. Having a security clearance is vital in the intel world. If you lose it, you don’t work, and may never work for the IC again. Part of having such a clearance is monitoring of your finances. If you suddenly start showing missed payments or taking on lots of debt, you could lose that clearance. Financial problems suggest vulnerability to bribery or recruitment for the right price. Frankly, the vast majority of intelligence workers wouldn’t bite; I’ve come to know a fair few. They are patriotic and place a high premium on personal integrity. But everyone has their breaking point.
Luckily, the leadership of the IC understands this, and is making adjustments to the rules that govern security clearances.\
Cyberwar in the Time of COVID-19
Another concern is that adversaries and opportunists are taking advantage of the global instability to ramp up their efforts. Much, if not most of this involves cyberspace to some degree. The International Business Times reports:
The home confinement of hundreds of millions of people worldwide to halt coronavirus contagion has presented intelligence services with a challenge: monitoring an explosion in internet traffic, above board and not, even as their own capacity is reduced.
Didier Lauras, “Coronavirus Confinement Challenges Intelligence Services”
The global health crisis has exposed the internet as both a tool and a potential target for malefactors, experts say, with agents — many themselves working from home — having to sift through the deluge looking for credible threats.
Malign actors are also exploiting the fact that, because of the virus, field work has been reduced. This is creating problem for our intelligence people who must continue to do their jobs, even when their chief client is too bloody stupid to listen (sorry, couldn’t help myself). However, it is something of a truism among intelligence professionals that the weakest link in the intelligence cycle is usually the client.
But I want to take a moment to thank those in the IC who are doing everything they can, at even greater risk than usual, to protect our country.