Ex-CIA officer: US firms still skip counterintelligence training

The FBI was opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours as far back as 2020, when nearly half of its roughly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases tied to China. Yet most US companies with valuable technology still run no counterintelligence training for their staff, according to a former CIA officer who now trains corporations.

"It takes a disaster for people to realize that a little bit of training could have mitigated the risk," said Michele Rigby Assad, who served in the CIA from 2002 to 2012 on undercover counterterrorism and counterintelligence assignments overseas and now works as a corporate counterintelligence trainer and international-security consultant.

Her warning lands as Nvidia's board investigates whether CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Assad didn't assess the evidence in that case or say what Huang knew. Nvidia says it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised, and China has denied the espionage allegations. But given Nvidia's central role in the US-China AI competition, she said the reports didn't surprise her.

The FBI has since said it helped facilitate 62 removals of foreign intelligence threats through its China program this year. Assad told Business Insider in September there are "far more Chinese operations going on against us in the United States" than FBI agents available to pursue them.

What does the Nvidia case change for employers?

For HR and security leaders, Assad's core message is a capability gap: leaders of strategically important companies underestimate how personal relationships can be exploited for intelligence purposes.

"If you have products that are of interest to the Chinese and you've spent millions or billions of dollars developing that product, you are a target," she said. "It's so much easier for the Chinese to steal those secrets, product designs, etc. than it is to spend billions of dollars trying to engineer what you've already developed."

She argues private-sector counterintelligence training should be a priority, so employees "understand the risk and know what an intelligence operation looks like in real life." Companies also need to "train ourselves out of the optimism bias that causes us to put on rose-colored glasses and not see what's happening in front of our faces."

The FBI's own guidance echoes her. The bureau warns that counterintelligence risks often look like ordinary business interactions — a "too perfect" investor, recruiter or customer request, a new hire seeking unusual access, or a friendly contact who gradually asks for more information.

How does recruitment actually start?

Assad said recruitment can begin with something as ordinary as a paid speaking invitation.

"Oftentimes experts are invited to speak or give a presentation at a conference in China," she said. "Then, Chinese contacts who develop a friendship with you will start asking you for reports/insights that they pay you for."

The requests escalate from there — additional reports, then more sensitive information. "People tend to get caught up in the ease with which they get paid for work that feels natural or with minimal risk," Assad said. "They identify your vulnerabilities, and they play on those weaknesses."

Those vulnerabilities shape the method, she said: an intelligence service may use financial incentives or "insert a honeytrap into your social circle if you're lonely, feel unappreciated, etc." She called the use of honeypots "a tale as old as time."

For HR teams, that points to a practical screening question: are outside paid engagements, consulting arrangements and conference appearances part of your disclosure policy?

Where's the training gap widest?

Assad pointed to Florida's Space Coast, where companies run sensitive technology development. She said she and her husband once saw people in a Cocoa Beach bar whom they believed were Chinese operatives "working the room" — tactics she recognized from her own overseas work. Business Insider hasn't independently verified that observation.

"We have engineers and people involved in secret developmental efforts that cost billions of dollars for our companies," Assad said. "And the Chinese have operatives crawling up and down."

A 2023 federal advisory reported by MarketWatch warned that foreign intelligence entities were seeking sensitive technology and data from commercial space companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin — consistent with her concern.

She said she has offered free counterintelligence training to companies and business networks in the region. Nobody has taken her up on it.