Undercover Security Guards Infiltrate Workplace | Thieving workers should be on the lookout as employers expand internal investigations
There are spies everywhere. And in Greater Hartford workplaces, there could be spies just about anywhere.
You might have talked to an SSC Security & Investigations spy without ever knowing it.
Perhaps it is the new coworker hanging out at the water cooler in the morning. Or the anonymous IT staffer who called with questions about your computer password. What about the nondescript person taking notes and photographs in your building’s lobby?
Yes, SSC employees go undercover to root out security breaches in workplaces. It’s all intended to discover chinks in the clients’ armor, and it’s more elaborate than most of their employees realize.
SSC, based in Shelton with an office in Hartford, offers an unusual combination of services, according to national office security officials. The company provides a variety of security services, including consultations on physical security or the protection of company information, nailing down thieving employees and collecting evidence for courtroom trials.
Multiple Strategies
Security experts such as Joseph Ricci say the multi-pronged approach is becoming somewhat more common in this era of ramped-up security and regulation.
“We’re seeing more companies doing a combination of services or skill sets,” said Ricci, who is the executive director of the National Association of Security Companies. While most companies still offer just one type of service, many others are increasing the services they provide. Still, Ricci said, it’s not common to hear about a business that handles all the elements SSC does.
Amit Gavish of SSC was formerly the deputy director of security for the president of his native Israel. Now the serious, soft-spoken man keeps a rather Spartan office in SSC’s suite on Ann Street in downtown Hartford, and talks about the fast-changing world of office security.
Office security was — and still is — a major career option for retired cops, but other elements are in the mix now, he said. It’s become more of a cerebral business, with new opportunities for information technology specialists or government strategists. You don’t need 20 years on the police force to land this kind of job anymore.
The primary engine behind this shift was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, when national attention turned to counterterrorism efforts. Suddenly it wasn’t acceptable to just throw up a few cameras and call it a day — now, security companies like SSC look at physical security, IT vulnerabilities, flaws in the companies’ policies.
Often, human error or carelessness provides the biggest gaps in security, he said.
It’s amazingly easy to get someone’s computer password. For example, many employees put their passwords on post-it notes right on their computers, Gavish said. Most employees will just give up their password if someone claiming to be from the IT department calls and asks for it.
SSC clients include hospitals, shopping centers, Fortune 500 companies and public entities, Gavish said. Although the company balked at naming many specific clients, the State of Connecticut confirmed that it uses the company for security work.
Much of their work sounds more akin to private investigation services than traditional office “security.” Banks can hire the company to investigate businesses and individuals that have applied for loans — the security company can report on whether the business is legitimate or if the person has had run-ins with the law.
SSC personnel will also occasionally run exercises where an employee will walk into a corporate client’s building, take pictures and ask questions about the business — it’s a way of finding out how easy it is to get proprietary information. Gavish himself will dive into dumpsters during business hours and blatantly root through thrown-out papers in plain sight of passing employees. Usually he gets odd looks, but oftentimes no one thinks to question him or alert security.
As for true undercover work, the firm can send in an SSC employee to a workplace to pose as an employee.
Usually this is an effort to catch thieves. It happens more than you might think, Gavish said.
“In most cases, employees don’t suspect to what extent [the company] will go” in order to catch them, he said — which, of course, makes them fairly easy to catch. “It happens frequently.”
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