EP 100 Adriaan Bosch on Predictive Risk, Contextual Intelligence, and Evolving Security Strategies - a Vitamin Shot for the Security Brain

Who am I?

As a seasoned consultant in Physical Security, Loss Prevention, and Risk Management, I collaborate with a dedicated team of experts to craft robust security strategies for multinational companies and diverse organizations. My journey in the security domain spans over 20 years, during which I've led security operations for multinational corporations in some of the world's most demanding environments. In my present role, I'm instrumental in shaping security strategies for groundbreaking projects and developments, redefining the perception of security and safety in society.

Driven by a deep conviction that security knowledge and resources should be universally accessible, I am committed to advocating for security as a fundamental human right. This passion fuels my dedication to not only protect but also empower communities and individuals with the tools and understanding necessary to ensure their safety and well-being.

☕️ What makes me Tick?

I'm human. I value life, I enjoy the rewards and challenges of being a husband and a father, I seek the company of other like-minded individuals and I pursue the mind's curiosity through constant learning, travelling, seeking and experiencing. 

✈️ Through my pursuits, I have travelled to 48 countries and experienced the enormity of our world and the diversity of humankind - both beautiful and grotesque. My journey has taught me that life is ultimately about our choices. Everything in life comes at a price and you need to be careful full what you choose. I choose to protect, defend and empower others to protect what is good. 

⚔️ While travelling taught me about the world, the military taught me about myself: My strengths, My weakness, My fears and My hopes. It made me a better Human and showed me the importance of responsibility, teamwork, planning ahead, extreme accountability and how to walk with dignity pride and confidence. 

🏛️ Everything, even corporate positions, is driven by or built around humans. The corporate world has taught me: 
• That you are only as strong as your network
• The value of a healthy culture
• The difference between motivation and consequence
• That emotions, not actions, speak louder than words 
• You will meet some amazing people; learn from them
• Taking on new challenges rapidly enables you to acquire and maintain skills
• No matter what you do for work, it pays to be skilled at sales

Lastly all views expressed here are my own and not the views of my employer.

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

Yoyo: 0:02

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a Fabry view. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we're delighted to be providing meaningful education information and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and today. And we want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the security circle. If you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms and Spotify is still currently trending as the most popular. So don't forget to subscribe, like, and share. Or even better, just like, comment, and share the LinkedIn post. Today is a very special day because we are recording the hundredth episode to celebrate a hundred episodes of the Security Circle podcast. And who better to bring back than a man who has held the top three position for the most downloaded podcasts in now a hundred episodes, Adriaan Bosch, welcome back to the Security Circle podcast. How you doing? Thanks

Adriaan: 1:59

I need random, round of applause to you first, uh, Yolanda, on our podcasts. It's amazing. I didn't, you know, I can imagine, I, I can remember when we did the first one. Uh, I think we were all, we were both still very new, new at talking and yeah. And, uh, so congratulations first to you and thank you very much. I don't know, I don't know what happened. It's not my grandma that's logging in, so I don't know where those, where those views came from, but yeah.

Yoyo: 2:27

Look, I don't know what it is. I also thought that was going to be my next question. What is it about you, Adriaana? Everyone's like tuning in. I'm thinking, what has this guy got? I don't know. Let's find out today.

Adriaan: 2:36

But I think that's what it is. It's like, who's this dude? You know, I think it's more, you know, why, why is this guy here? Why was he on the, on the effect list for instance, you know, the influences list. I think that's more the case. It's more interesting. Who knows?

Yoyo: 2:49

But listen, In today's podcast, we are going to be talking about a specific subject. and that subject is a presentation that you delivered at GSX in Orlando in September this year. In fact, it was my birthday, the day you delivered this. And your title was leveraging contextual intelligence for predictive risk analysis strategies. We're going to talk about that in a second. I'm going to talk about why that's so relevant for security professionals now. But first of all, when we did sit and have lunch as a group on that day, you told us that you, and let's talk about, your posts on the, on LinkedIn. They're great. Your posts are informative. They are unique. They are very, very worthwhile. looking at and reading. So if you're not following Adriaan, it's Adriaan with two A's, then definitely connect with him and check out his posts. You put one particular post on that we talked about, about how, you adopted some security measures in your hotel, to stop us, to stop a specific technique, take us through this technique and why you had to wrap a towel around the inside of your handle in your room.

Adriaan: 4:00

Well, I had an interesting experience in the hotel that was booked, it, you know, uh, it ended up being a long stay hotel, and I was the only person transiting, so it was more a residential block than anything else. And, and, um, the door itself, Was I could see was a bit risky and the problem was we were away during the day, you know, so everyone knew you weren't there because they were expecting you to be at the conference. And I think it's quite obvious if you're in that area that that's where you are the whole day. Anyhow, so there was a risk for an under the door attack or an over the door, you know, so for those that's not familiar with it, it's when there's a vulnerability and most hotel locks is that the fact that you, that the lever actually opens the bolt. Yeah. And if you're on the inside of the door, you just need to activate the lever and it will, it will activate the bolt and open it. So if you get a wire or piece of string or anything around it, you can open it from the inside. And so, I then proceeded to use a towel to prevent that type of attack because you can't get the string around the door handle. Unfortunately, that, that same evening, the access control system went down. And, I couldn't enter my room with the access card and I couldn't even break into my own room because I had successfully deterred the attack. So I was locked out of my hotel room. eventually like two hours later, 11 o'clock at night, I actually got in, but yeah, effective, effective technique.

Yoyo: 5:36

It is funny that you locked yourself out of your own hotel room with your own totally credulous techniques proving. exactly how successful they are., It was funny. It was funny that you were a little embarrassed about it as well, Adriaan, to be honest.

Adriaan: 5:56

Yeah. You need to laugh. You need to be able to laugh about yourself. You know, it's part of life.

Yoyo: 6:01

Yes, absolutely. let's talk about why leveraging contextual intelligence for predictive risk analysis strategies is important. Tell us, first of all, what leveraging contextual intelligence means. So, I think

Adriaan: 6:17

we're in a phase currently within the security sector where we, there's, a blurring lines of responsibility between what's the state's responsibility. I think you've seen that in something like, um, in the UK now with Martin's law, when something that traditionally was the remnant of the state now is the responsibility of the private sector. So there's been a, there's a, there's been a change there and it's been a, and it's an enforced change on a specific context. The other component is that What is a credible risk is the other question. You know, a couple of years ago, you know, before nine 11, no one, would've agreed with you if you said no. A plane could fly into a building. You would say, listen, that's not a credible risk. and a European neighbor invading its, uh, invading its neighbor, you know? So what is credible, uh, is definitely becoming. Quite significant. And to that effect, it's really becoming quite difficult to do accurate risk assessments because you constantly have this the severity scale is consistently very high and the, and the possibility scale is significantly high. So the, what you're getting is that all your risk assessments generally end up being very, very high and not nuanced enough to actually give proper guidance based on the actual risk for that asset. The first part of the conversation really is understanding what risk and take show intelligence. Basically the entire discussion is around what we like to talk about is adversarial risk assessments, as we now flipping the coin a little bit, and instead of understanding the asset, we're now really looking at the adversary. There's a, there's an important thing to understand and that, Although the adversary doesn't necessarily know he does have a specific strategy. He doesn't, maybe he doesn't realize it, but he does have a strategy. And that strategy is based on your specific security strategy. And to that effect you need to, it's almost like a, It's more of a chess move in a sense than playing checkers. You need to really understand and have the intelligence to really understand in depth what am I really facing? What am I trying to protect? Who am I protecting it against? That's the two big questions.

Yoyo: 8:49

I learned recently, probably listening to another guest on the Security Circle podcast that adversaries are very agile, you know, they're adaptive. How do you factor that adaptiveness into this piece, Audrion?

Adriaan: 9:05

So some, some are, you know, so, but the intent is still the same and the context is all the same, you know, so if you understand what the intent is, then, they would move around trying to achieve that intent. My counter to that would be that. Quite a significant amount of it is, is actually organized crime. Um, so if you're only looking at from a security perspective in terms of criminality, a very significant amount of crime is based on something that's planned and organized and arranged, you know, and so there's a sense of it. They can be agile in the way that they approach, but their risks remains, remain the same. You know, they still need to appoint someone. They still have a buyer, they have a recruiter, you know, there's, the money still needs to move the same way. so the attack victim might change, but often the actual, the intent really stays the same.

Yoyo: 10:06

You've written a quote here in your deck that says contextual knowledge helps us understand and navigate the imperfect world without which we would not be able to create specific purposes or goals. J. G. S. Bosch.

Adriaan: 10:22

That's my father.

Yoyo: 10:24

Wow.

Adriaan: 10:25

So my father in 1989, he was a criminologist, quite a significant figure. He basically won the equivalent of the Victoria Cross, during, uh, the border war in South Africa. But then he was, so he was awarded. Within the apartheid government, but then he was also, celebrated within the ANC government. So when the South African government changed hands, my father was part of the transition executive council where he was, instrumental in bringing about change. What he was very good at for me specifically is helping me to understand context. Anything that, remember growing up in a country like South Africa, and I think it's the same in places like Russia, from, from a very small age, you sing patriotic songs, you know, and you're surrounded by a specific group of people that, that share a specific viewpoint. So, um, You can get stuck in your own context. And what my father was always able to do is, is to take me out of my own context and say, listen, but look at it from this perspective. And he was, you know, he's credited for starting the private security industry in South Africa. He wrote quite a few books, but what I, what he was on about, and many years later, I actually read this specific piece that he wrote, which is about the direction of criminology. We basically all get defected. Is it the social science or is it the judicial science? Where should it sit, you know? And, and basically talking about there is this change of context. And if you understand the context, it will, it can sit in both. So ironically, I never, I wanted to be a farmer, you know, I went to study agriculture and here I am talking about my father's work.

Yoyo: 12:14

I have known you a long time now and I've just discovered this about you and about your father Adriaan. You've kept that secret, which just goes to show when you ask the right questions, you get very different answers. What was it like growing up then with a father who was a criminologist?

Adriaan: 12:33

I can tell you, there's always interesting pictures in his office. You know, he was, um, you know, he was shot like. five times during his time in the police. Um, but when I was born as a child, it was more at the end of his career. So, he left the police and he was a lecturer at one of the universities. So I grew up on campus and, but my father was also exceptionally good rugby coach. He also coached, South African rugby teams and quite a few people will remember him more for his rugby than for the actual work he did in criminology. I always. had the sense of, respect from other people for him. And the absolute irony is that so many of his colleagues became my friends. You know, so someone like you on deploy, for instance, that was a very good colleague and friend of my father played a very big role in my own development. A Benedict Weaver. So people that worked with my father then started working with me later and are still quite a big influence for me.

Yoyo: 13:36

Yeah, I can see that. I can see how they've shaped you because as a security professional, I would have to say, I don't stand alone in saying that you are quite remarkable. I've seen you in action, seeing you at an exhibition. I've seen how you engage. I've seen how your career's grown. And, you know, even you have a followership now that's not just limited to one country alone.

Adriaan: 13:57

You only see the good things, you know, it takes, I was in 2 wars, you know, I. You know, I started as a security guard. I didn't, when I left the army, I worked as a guard, you know, close protection for a very long time. There's a lot of sacrifices. I think one of the. So I think two things, I think my wife played a very big role in supporting me., she was solid in her career and that allowed me to grow and change work and study and things. So much credit for supporting us. But then, and then the second thing I've always had, tremendous. Mentors around me. And even now I've got the most, you know, I'm sitting at a company with, I feel humbled by in the presence of my colleagues, you know, someone like Bruce and Peter Smith and Chase Hart and John Laws and Dixon and to do. there's so many, you know, Everyone is just like this absolute ninja, you know? It's like being in the A team, I'm definitely Murdoch, but, um, but what, uh, so yes, I think I can't take credit. I think, I think it's more the fact that I've had, I've just had a, uh, I've been on a path that's been, riddled with people that has been influential in my life.

Yoyo: 15:17

It's a long time ago, isn't it, that we sat and chatted virtually while you were in your kitchen? we talked about what kind of job you were going to do having just moved to the UK and, look at you now. How do you, for other professionals who find themselves at a crossroads, and it happens to all of us. Like you, I was a security officer. I was working for 7 to an hour when I left the British police. And I did 13 hour shifts in a shopping mall. which I look back and it was just the mindset. It was like, this is a means to an end. This is going to get me started on a journey. I've decided I'm going to take, so I have to bite the bullet. and get on with it and do it well. What advice would you give to other professionals who are in that crossroads like you were then, what would you advise them to do?

Adriaan: 16:06

I've had to do it a couple of times. You know, I've moved from South Africa to the States. I lived and worked in the US, moved from there to the UK, moved from the UK to Germany, moved from Germany back to South Africa, now back to the UK. I think this, I think one thing you learn as a sniper is that. If you want to hit something in the distance, you really need to focus very fine, so that the one thing is to have that long term vision, what is your intent? how do you, what are you, where do you, what are you aiming for? I think that's quite, that's important to understand. Listen, what am I aiming for? Because if you're not aiming at anything, you're not going to hit it. And then secondly, I've always looked in for someone who's actually hit the target, okay. How did you do it? Connect with them. Don't be afraid to connect with people, connect with them, ask them this and get their advice, set up a coffee, you know, so when I came over the first time, you know, when we, I didn't just come to the UK, I did a reconnaissance six months beforehand. So I, you know what I did, I, I set up a coffee with Michael, Mike, and we made up a Paul Moore. Uh, And we had a coffee there, you know, and the

Yoyo: 17:17

Institute of Directors.

Adriaan: 17:18

Yes, we had a coffee there. And, um, and I met with, um, with quite a few people. So just to, just to understand, you know, getting to understand the context. What, what, how, what makes you successful within the European context? Market is very, very, very different from the African market is an example and the states. So, um, so those coffee really gave me a lot of insight. It still took me six months to find a job. So it's still, regardless of what your experience is, and I think my challenge was, I was aiming too low. With all the interviews I've had, I was always overqualified. I think that was the problem

18:04

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Yoyo: 19:04

yeah. And the thing is knowing you and knowing that you're genuinely a decent, humble guy. I think it would have taken you a while to realize that you were aiming too low. And I remember feeling that the vulnerabilities that you had at the time, wanting to support your family,, you act with a lot of purpose. So that purpose of being in, in, in a job is important to you, but. I remember saying to you at the time, because I took a year out and I found something that was really suitable for me. And I was lucky to be able to take that year out and have a little bit of fun to set up a podcast. Eh, the rest is history, but that six months is, it was important for you to understand that it was about the right opportunity for you rather than jumping into something. That wouldn't have been right for you. Don't you think?

Adriaan: 19:51

I think the six months also allowed me to actually focus a bit on, on myself. So I completed quite a few certifications in that six months, which I never, ever had the time to, so just to, Maybe unwind a bit. it was also very important for me to support those around me. It was more important to make sure that the family was settled. and before I could actually then start looking at myself.

Yoyo: 20:19

Yeah, and you've continued. I have to mention while we're it's a good segue this because you've recently just gained membership. Haven't you to a security body?

Adriaan: 20:28

Yes, indeed. Yeah, I'm very fortunate to have been accepted within the register of Chartered Security Professionals in the UK. really looking forward to, actually also give. Give back there. You know, I think I really believe in security. I really believe that personal safety, you know, it's a, it's something that's very personal to every single person. I think that's such an important thing to, for people to have, so if there's anything we can do, and that's also probably why I post a lot. I post the stuff that I want to read, you know, I want to, I really, I really, really believe in the fact that, that, people have the right to feel secure, not just be, but feel as well, so yeah, I'm looking forward to that. I'm very honored. Like I said, I'm sitting in, I'm in, in the environment I'm currently in, you know, I'm surrounded by exceptional, exceptional people. I think it's just a, it's still a very small step on the way for me, to be honest.

Yoyo: 21:27

You, everybody looking up Buro Happold on LinkedIn,

Adriaan: 21:31

to see if there's any

Yoyo: 21:32

vacancies there.

Adriaan: 21:34

We, we actually grew quite significantly. I can tell. I think we, my, in my previous career, I think the crime and everything else around the procedures and the stuff we did, that was extreme. Where I'm now, you know, we working on absolutely the most extreme projects internationally. With the most, you know I would sit two days just thinking about how am I going to fix this problem? You know, um, and yes, I enjoy it. You know, I think it's such a, it's such a blessing. I really, really enjoy the work that we do. And, um, we really get challenged, I can tell you that., But, in that it's so good to have soundboards around you and, you know, really struggling with very high expectations. Um, but then seeing it, seeing it being delivered, that's such a, I never, that's one thing that's, that's. Probably a disconnect currently for me because I used to be the owner of the risk. Now I'm not the owner of the risk. And I think that allows me a little bit to step away and looking at it more holistically and not have the emotional connection with it, or the risk as well associated with it. So you can really look at it from a, from an external perspective and really, Do it properly. That's the other thing. I think, you know, if you're in the, when you're in the job, everything is, there's limits to what you can spend. You have only so much time, so anything you're doing, generally you're not doing everything 100 percent as good as you can,, I would love to write better, procedures for instance, I couldn't, I never had the time, now, I've got the ability to really go and look at something and write something that's really exceptional

Yoyo: 23:14

so tell me then, am I naive in wanting to be owner of risk? Because in my career, I've never really been the owner of risk and I've kind of nonchalantly said, for goodness sake, make me the owner of the risk, I'll get it sorted. people tend to be very slopey shouldered when it comes to accepting risk and owning in organizations in general. I do generally have this kind of vibe of, Oh, I'll do it, you know, but no one wants to,

Adriaan: 23:46

am I wrong? I don't think you're wrong. Technically we also don't own the risk, you know, um, we, it's always the asset owner that really owns the risk. I think someone needs to stand up and say, pick me, I'll, I'll do it. I know how to do this thing. Give it to me. And I think. If, if that's your personality, then at least you know what you're dealing with. The thing of owning the risk is you know your, you know what it is, you get to know it very well and intimate. But it does keep you up at night. You know, um, currently it's, if you're owning three different groups of risks or different entities, that's also a little bit stressful, but I think the fact that the moment you own that, it can take over your life. And in my previous profession, especially security, people listening and would know that, there's security never stops. The adversary never has a day off. So. Your phone can never be off. You know, you can, you can at the, at, at an instant, you can go from having a lunch with your family to absolute chaos that you need to manage. And you constantly in that condition, yellow, if you read Grossman's books, you constantly a little bit higher in terms of your response. So that maybe it's not the best thing. I enjoy now not being sitting with so much pressure, you know, it's really quite good just to step away from it.

Yoyo: 25:19

You're saying the strategic element of the role that you're in is more suitable because like you, I was also in an operational role and always a little bit left of bang and you never know when the phone's going to go. And I really enjoy not having to be that. responsive anymore. Maybe it's a sign of growing up. Maybe it's because we've spent a lot of energy in that space. And it's, it's exhausting.

Adriaan: 25:45

Yeah, but you also need to be able to give it away, you know, so I think you need to there's if you don't give it away, it's also not a good thing, you know, you, you need to be able to let others also take responsibility and maybe that, that comes into building a team and what we often did, we would as a collective, as a group, I always had a, quite a close group of people around me and we would take turns to own it. This is your weekend off, you don't, you don't answer your phone, you know, even small little things. If you can do that, you know, even, and then, but if you have the support of your, of, of firstly, if you've, if you manage well up and, you'll, uh, if you're in a senior position, if the board really supports you and understand what you're trying to achieve. So if you can articulate your intent quite clearly to them and say, listen, this is what we're trying to do. and I think that It's so critical. And I think a lot of security professionals, Mr. Mark in clearly articulating what the security strategy intent is. And if you are able to verbalize your intent, and that's where the military, set of orders is very good to do that, to use that as an example, because the commanding officer, the first thing he would say My intention is, this is the objective. And then everything else. How are we going to achieve it? I think if you're able to articulate our intent is to do the following and then you can judge me on how I'm trying to do this, you know, so it's two, two separate things. I think there's also a little bit of excitement. So if you're taking the responsibility, you also take the credit, you know, so it comes with the, of the territory. So at the moment, I don't, we might think of the most amazing stuff, but we never get the credit for it. that also plays into the equation, you know, it depends what where you want to, where you want to be.

Yoyo: 27:44

There's a very good yoga phrase actually, and it's about having intent and having attention. So you have your intention and your attention, and it's a really nice pairing of words, which also applies to security because where you have intent. You apply attention. In your presentation, you've drawn an analogy to fishing, not the cyber fishing, reading the waters, you've called this. How context and intent determine fishing tactics. How's that for a segue? What's that about, Adriaan?

Adriaan: 28:19

So anyone that, that, that actually know fishing and for the audience, it's actually a picture of a fly fisherman. So you can't just go with any fishing tackle. And go and catch a salmon as an example, you know, you're the context that you're in. The type of water that you're in, the type of fish that you're targeting. And if you're looking at something like fly fishing, it's the weight of the line. It's the weight of the run. It's the, it's whether you're using. A leader that's a sinking leader. What type of fly do you use? Do you is there currently a hatch of insects rising or is that the time of the year where there's a lot of food in the water? So the context. Absolutely determines your strategy. So if my intent is, I'm going to catch a salmon, I need to really understand the context for me to be successful. And that is exactly the same with security. I really need to understand the context of my asset. And on what I'm trying to achieve for me to really get a strategy that is applicable. You can't think that the same thing is going to work. What we missed in the beginning is that as I progressed in my career, something that was quite obvious is the fact that the specific layers of security was diminishing. You know, when I was a soldier, very strict layers, you know, this is the army base, no one gets close to it, you know, if you go into close protection, again, you have this layers of security, but now where I'm in, in public safety, there's no, There's no walls, you know, you can't design in this layer. So you can't think that a layered approach is going to work on a public school ground. You need to be able to understand the context and then determine your approach. How am I going to approach this problem? So that's what that is all about.

Yoyo: 30:19

In your deck, you also talk about, the sort of security management blind spot. There's this amazing picture that I'll describe with kind of a stately building at the end of a very long straight road and four, black block bollards built into the entrance, which are the bollards that, Lower to allow vehicles to pass, but

Adriaan: 30:43

also vehicle mitigation bollards.

Yoyo: 30:47

Thank you. Thank you. Adriaan I'm in cyber now. Did I tell you? Um, it doesn't roll off the tongue like it used to, but what's really funny and what you've pointed to is that there is nothing outside to the left or to the right of that hostile vehicle mitigation that would stop a van just driving round. That HVM, the, sometimes people get it so wrong, don't they? But what's the reason for that?

Adriaan: 31:13

That was naughty of me. So I specifically posted that post out of context for my presentation. So I specifically took a picture that's out of context. So what the listeners can't see is that there's two pictures. The one shows just the hostile mitigation bollards. And then if you step back, there's actually a gate. The bollards in the first image is only as the secondary barrier, it's not the main barrier. But what I tried to show in this post is that every single person who knew me didn't question the context, or they didn't question my intent either. Every single person that didn't know me, assumed and knew the context, assumed that I was being a facetious. And all I wanted to prove there was the fact that if you, is that people will make assumptions. So those who knew the context assumed something about me. Those who didn't know the context also assumed something. No one took the time to really understand what the context was.

Yoyo: 32:19

Because that picture to describe to the listener is one part of the picture. If you step back 20 meters, there's another layer of HVM and then some amazingly strong gates, a great big stone wall. So it's not just that, but you're right. People can jump to conclusions. Maybe it's the incredulousness of it. It's like, seriously, people see that and they jump to a conclusion straight away. It's amazing. you know, of how effective is that? Because we've all seen that fail, haven't we? The one on the video, you know, the one where, the van, the white van, they blocked themselves in with the HVM and

Adriaan: 32:53

they can't get out. I think that, what's important is to understand that context is not fixed. It's dynamic. often we, when we're doing assessments, we look at the context in a fixed. Uh, in a snapshot in time, sometimes even worse off. We're looking at the problem just at a specific time of day. You're not even looking at the issue at night. But but if you think of a stadium, for instance, there's a very different risk in that stadium. If it's empty with no one in there compared to when it's completely full. There's a very different,, risk if mobile was playing, whoever the arch rival is compared to Taylor Swift playing the, so it's exactly the same asset, but that context is consistently fluid and you need to be able to have a strategy that can adapt to that, that, that fluid, context. And, but that can only happen if you really understand the context and then really understand what would, what are with an adversary. try to defeat in this specific context? What would the actions be? And that's where that adversarial mindset comes in.

Yoyo: 34:03

Staying on intent then, let's look at the piece where you've included artificial intelligence without context is artificial uselessness. 100%. What made you focus on that?

Adriaan: 34:16

So, so I think we are actually behind the, our,, behind the, the social media, fraternity in a sense. what they've learned within, um, social media is that context is what determines who you are. How you would actually go and judge what the intent is of the person that's posting it. So what they've learned firstly from, from artificial intelligence is if you're not really specific in giving it a context, then it's really useless. It will give information, it will manufacture information and start hallucinating and all sorts of stuff. And on the opposite side is when they're looking at, moderating content on social media, they really looking at the context that it sits in. So what they're trying to do currently is actually trying to get that to be automated. And if they achieve that,, if they're able to, you know, Get a system that is able to assess context that will empower us as physical security people tremendously because you can then start to have, then you can start to be predictive if you have the ability to assess. The change in context, you can then start to be predictive, and that's what we actually take talking about in this slide pack is saying, but how can I be predictive? I don't want to be. I don't want to look backwards. I need to look forwards. What is the forward risk? And I think. Social media is going to get that right before we do it, actually.

Yoyo: 35:48

And you draw a really good correlation as well between data and intelligence. So you write, intelligence is crucial for strategic decision making, but without context, intelligence can be misunderstood, leading to incorrect conclusions and decisions. Give us an example, if you can, of how that is evidenced.

Adriaan: 36:08

Let me think of a good one. I think often there's a perception that, let's use shoplifting as a, as an example, a perception is created that the people that are stealing the goods out of a store is hungry. So now that's the context that, that, that problem is painted in, what the people on the ground knows that it's the same guy that's going from one store to the others. Um, stealing to the limit that he's allowed to steal it in the UK as an example. And that is his business. You know, that's been like that for millennia. Uh, he's not stealing to eat. You know, if you look at what they're stealing as well, razor blades,, batteries, shaving foam, you know, these things are not, that's not all. In Africa, for instance, shoe polish, they would steal shoe polish because they buffed the taxi's wheels. I see. impossible to bloody secure shoe polish, cause it's a metal thin as well. You can't even put a year stag in it. anyhow, so the, if you're thinking of shoplifting, In the context of its people trying to get food on the table, you are completely wrong. Your decision making is completely wrong. And for a very long time, I think the laws around this and the policing of it has been completely utterly wrong. you need to understand this in the context of organized crime. there's a market for this thing. Where are they selling this? Who's the, who's buying it from this individual? he's might have a habit and often you focusing on the shoplifter. It's absolutely the wrong place to focus. you need to focus on who the buyer is, you know, who's the,, who's managing the value at the back end. And that's, for me, that's an example. If you understood that, look at the data, what are they stealing? This is not, they're not stealing food or anything. They're stealing valuable goods to sell different intent.

Yoyo: 38:10

You write also that there are three primary processes to optimize decision making. Let's look at this, because you talk about adapting, shaping, and abandon. Let's look at why this is important for a security professional listening, because this really is, Arjan, you know, a vitamin shot for the security brain.

Adriaan: 38:29

Okay, so it's, I can't take credit for that. That's actually Robert Sternberg. Uh, so he, he coined contextual intelligence back in 1984, uh, when it was, he was a professor at Yale university. And what he was more looking for is how does a business adapt to its context? Okay. So, uh, so the ways that the business could adapt to the context was by either adapting to that environment. We're shaping the environment more to, to your objectives or then completely abandon it. Now, in, in the, in, in the context of security, you can adapt, you can accept the risks that, that, uh, that exist, or you can shape, so you can, you can mitigate the problems that exist, but we can't abandon risk. So I can't. Tell my client, listen, no, I don't think you should be building this building. Um, because you're going to attract risk. We can't do that. So we, organizations can often say, listen, no, it's not going to be worth us moving into this specific space and then they can abandon it. What is the same of the two is the way that, that you mitigate it. So the one is you, you fix the context. No, that's not always possible. If you use McDonald's as an example, they're very successful with the fries internationally. So if you buy a fries at McDonald's in Africa, it's the same in the US and same in the UK, but the burgers isn't, you know, you're going to get a very different burger. So in the one sense, they've looked at the problem and they fix the one. That was working for them, and then they changed and developed to that change in the context. So they would bring in new flavors and they, it's still a burger, but it's in India. It's not, it's going to, it's going to taste completely different to the States.

Yoyo: 40:21

They did the same thing with Kentucky fried chicken, all the equipment, Barbados, when I used to live there, because you can get Kentucky fried chicken sold in Barbados, right, when you're, when you've got a Kentucky fried chicken selling jerk chicken,

Adriaan: 40:33

Yes.

Yoyo: 40:34

Then that's the magic ingredient.

Adriaan: 40:36

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, they're adapting to the context. So that's exactly it. And, and it's, we need to do the same. Um, so I think there's a challenge in that. So I think what we said is that, often people don't really understand what the intent is of the criminal. So the shoplifting one is a good one. The intent of the adversary was underestimated. So what we always say is there's a easy way to look at it as it's a four why principle. If you ask for, if you ask why four times, you'll get to the root cause. So if you, in any scenario, if you want to really don't look at the first problem, you look at the problem, ask yourself, why is he doing it? Why is he doing it? But why is that the case? You know, then you often, if you can ask why four times you get to the root cause. So that's a piece of. Um, advice that I've, I've really looked at. Um, and then secondly, the, your strategy really, really depends on your asset. You can't have the same strategy for a university and the bank it's, you can't, you know, even though a lot of the elements are the same, there's so much variations there that it can never be the same or an opera house. In a grocery store, you can't just think in terms of layers and Often, there's this misconception that certain types of security systems will achieve some sort of miraculous. Deterrence. And the second part of this is really understanding why, what deters people from doing crime. That is the, that for me was probably one of the biggest ah ha moments in my life. Is getting back to Benfman's, Hellenistic calculus. and understanding what the actual, so a lot of people know Benson for not just the fact that he's, that his body is still in situ at the university in London, but for the design of the panopticon, but what made the panopticon work? It was more that hedonism is the fact that there's three S's is the surety of detection, the swiftness of the detection and the severity of the impact. Now that can go both ways. You know, if I tell you Yolanda, you just won the Euro millions. tonight. 120, 113 million pounds, that severe. Here's a ticket. You've just won it. That's sure. You've got it. The surety is there, but you can only get it in a hundred years. Okay. It's not swift. So it's not worth it anymore.

Yoyo: 43:18

So the

Adriaan: 43:18

opposite can be, if you drive a car, You know, so you're driving a car down the highway, you know, the moment you drive one mile an hour over the speed limit, that instant the car will stop, the engine will shut down, the car will never work again, and you can never drive it again. So it's severe, it's swift, and it's sure. Will anyone ever drive over the speed limit? They won't. Okay, so when you start driving, Starting to develop, once you now have this contextual intelligence, but you now really understand your asset, you know, who's going to attack it, then it's, how do I create this deterrent? And that's those three things. And if you can build all three of them into your, uh, into your solution, then you deter people. That's, that's how it works.

Yoyo: 44:04

Let's talk about deterrence theory.

Adriaan: 44:06

So basic.

Yoyo: 44:07

Yeah, it is. I've never heard, I mean, you explain it incredibly well, and you did say, you know, we were going to be potentially deeping it, you know, in this podcast, but look, I think this is, this is good level. Deterrence theory. You've got a CCTV clip here. What's relevant, uh, to this?

Adriaan: 44:26

The video you need to explain quite a bit, but this video, it's a video of what we call in South Africa, crowbar gang. Now, what happened in South Africa is that, um, when the,, when crime started to increase in South Africa, you had the development of a private response industry. So the South African security industry is the third largest in the world with over 400, 000 security officers. So if you have an alarm that goes off in your house in South Africa, Two guys with guns come to your house and they come and sort out the problem, you know, that is an, and that's a concept that is now going around the world. You're getting it more and more. We have this response capability. So what the criminals did was so the burglaries fell. It was the only crime that really fell in South Africa was house burglaries. The problem was there was the adversary changed. He's, way of approach. He was agile, like you said, in the beginning. So now instead of coming when you're not around, they now started. Robbing you when you were at home because they knew your alarm system will be off. You would probably have all your most valuable possessions with you, and you didn't become the access key for them, for the, for whatever valuables they need to have, but they had to change the strategy to violence, which was completely bad. So where you went from your stuff was at risk. Now you're at risk. Okay., but what this video that I showed is from a crowbar incident, what it happened to the client in 2014. So just after I left the army, I was heading up a security company and I saw this incident happening at the clients. But what I saw in the robber was the impact of the adrenaline. It's exact same impact that I experienced in combat. I could see in the robber, I could see the visual exclusion, they were manufacturing stuff. So in the video they tried to kick down a door that's an outward opening door. You know, that door, they can kick in into infinitum. They will never kick that door open. And it's quite obvious that the two hinges on the outside. And they were holding a pickax in their hand to force, open the door. They had all the tools in the world. They never came in because they were so caught in the parasympathetic backlash in the, they couldn't cognitively think. and figure out the problem. And that is an advantage to us. If we are able to exploit that adrenaline, that parasympathetic impact, if we can understand the fight or flight, then you can develop the flight. If, but it's understanding what generates it in the brain. So, so Grossman's books, if you want to read it on combat, It's absolutely, it's, uh, written gold, to be honest.

Yoyo: 47:13

It's still terrifying, isn't it, though, that the adversary adapted to robbing a house during the day. And, and I, and I get that we don't see that so much in the UK, but we have seen some extraordinary strategies of, you know, robbers, robbing the houses of footballers because they know they're going to be at a football match. I mean, that's quite clever thinking for bandits, really. it's still terrifying being in a house where someone's trying to break in and you're in it. It's like, is this why you, would you advocate for safe rooms and things like that in those types of circumstances?

Adriaan: 47:46

I think what you're doing firstly is you underestimating the adversary. You know, don't do that. Well,

Yoyo: 47:53

the only ones I got to arrest weren't really that bright, to be honest with you.

Adriaan: 47:56

Well, but if you are talking about people targeting, high value individuals, that will have security or high value, facilities. You know, they do their reconnaissance. They're not coming in there blind. You know, they have their reconnaissance phase. It's often built on information gathered internally. Whatever systems you have internally, they will know about it. what I'd like to do is, I'd like to bring in a deception. as an example at a distribution center, we had a surveillance perimeter and we had lights everywhere except in one specific area where I created a little funnel. In that specific area we had round rocks that we put on the ground. And we had, uh, infrared lighting at night. So automatically for the adversary, that looked like the safest place that looked like a vulnerability because there wasn't any light there. He didn't notice that the round rocks were there to slow him down. They just thought there's round rocks. They didn't recognize this rock will actually prevent you from moving across the surface. And because it was this funnel shape, we could detect them very early. And then actually lure them into this little trap. and, but it gave us two things, not just preventing the incidents, but it also gave us the opportunity to observe the strategy. How do they approach When do they do it? What type of clothing is it more than one person, getting intelligence from that then assisted us. Um, so every scenario will be unique, but if you can deceive, you know, if you want to go back to Tzantzu, if you can deceive your enemy, you can defeat it.

Yoyo: 49:43

I think a lot of people will have enjoyed listening to that because I did. And every time I talk to you, Adriaan, it's always insightful. It's a vitamin shot for the security brain, but I can't thank you enough for coming back and for being our very, very special guest for our 100th anniversary. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle.

Adriaan: 50:06

Thank you, Yolanda, appreciate it.