The Ackerman Group provides a variety of services to safeguard our clients' employees and their families. By providing comprehensive protection against the full spectrum of threats, we provide an unparalled level of security.
Our Risknet® service provides concise, up-to-the-minute analyses of risks in 100 countries. Risknet® is updated throughout the business day and can be accessed electronically worldwide around the clock. It consists of the following:
Executive Digest
Highly analytical reports give early warning of impending developments
Country Summaries
Summaries put risks into perspective
Air Travel Guidance
Analyzes information on latest terrorist risks concerning international travel
City Guide
Helps travelers navigate foreign cities
Terrorist-group Glossary
Provides information on major terrorist organizations
Urgent Inquiries
Clients with urgent inquiries are assured instant, 24-hour telephone access to our area specialists
Customized Surveys
Our analysts also are available for customized surveys and recommendations on countries or regions under consideration for new or expanded investment. Risknet® is included in Chubb Corporation's Kidnap/Ransom and Extortion insurance policy. You may also subscribe for a yearly fee
Crisis Management Team Training:
We offer a half-day training seminar designed specifically for members of a corporate Crisis Management Team (CMT). Guidance is provided as to the appropriate composition of the CMT and the management of key elements of a successful hostage recovery. Among the topics discussed are the handling of the notification of a kidnapping or extortion, management of relations with the victim’s family, liaison with law enforcements agencies, dealing with media, strategizing the negotiation, and organizing the ransom delivery and hostage recovery. The training also includes the presentation of a simulated kidnap case, which participants are tasked with resolving.
Training Managers in High-Risk Areas:
Individual or group training is given to executives, both expatriate and local, their families and staffs to improve their security practices, sensitize them to recognizing surveillances and prepare them to respond effectively to emergencies. Activity patterns of executives are analyzed in detail and recommendations are given for modifying them to mitigate risks.
Protective Driving Training:
Executives and/or their drivers are briefed on the conceptual basis for antiterrorist-driving methodology and instructed in techniques. We also conduct "hands-on" driving exercises both domestically and overseas.
International Travel Security Awareness:
It is neither possible nor necessary to provide protective details for the vast majority of executives who travel or reside overseas, so we place our major emphasis upon personal-security-awareness training. This half-day seminar surveys terrorist/criminal methodologies and explains "gray" - anonymous - travel, airline - selection strategies, airport safety guidelines, ground transportation alternatives, hotel security tips, tactics for avoiding street crime, means of protecting sensitive information and other countermeasures.
Personal Security/Kidnap Prevention Training:
This half-day classroom seminar is designed to train groups of expatriates and local nationals who live in high-risk environments. It focuses on personal responsibility for one’s own security, residential security guidelines, ground transportation security and route analysis for movements between residences and workplaces, and workplace security guidelines. It also describes basic hostile surveillance detection methodology that can be used in conjunction with behavior modification techniques.
Hands-On Assault Survival Training:
This half-day program is presented in conjunction with International Travel Security Awareness or Personal Security/Kidnap Prevention training. It adds an important element of live-action training in assault response. It features a combination of classroom instruction and “hands-on” training scenarios designed to introduce attendees to techniques for increasing their chances of surviving various assault scenarios, including express kidnappings, carjackings, ATM muggings, restaurant-invasion robberies and other criminal attacks. The training includes practical tips for employing appropriate verbal and body-language responses to mitigate the potential for violence.
Workplace Violence/Active Shooter Training:
This half-day seminar examines the phenomenon of violence in the workplace, stressing the importance of developing a comprehensive Workplace Violence Plan that focuses on both prevention and response tactics. The presenter describes a representative sample of case studies to examine typical perpetrator profiles and catalysts for violence. Also discussed are actions to be taken in response to an active shooter scenario, incorporating the tenets of “Run, Hide and Fight” set out by law enforcement. The final segment of the training focuses on appropriate after-action programs, such as psychological counseling for victims and other affected employees, potential litigation issues and tips for dealing with the media.
Training Protective Personnel:
We support our executive-protection strategizing with tailored, state-of-the-art training for protective personnel. The stress is on meticulous advance work, efficient personnel deployment and fluid crisis response.
Physical Security Audits:
Our operatives are prepared to conduct thorough physical security audits of corporate facilities, to include: office spaces, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, mining complexes, and executive residences. The audit assesses risks in and around the site and examines perimeter defenses, exterior lighting, parking facilities, building access controls and the competence of security guard services.
We pride ourselves on our ability to arrange and oversee visits to high-risk areas throughout the world, and to protect personnel, meetings and special events.
We are prepared to provide protective details, utilizing drivers and security escorts vetted and, in many cases, trained by our protection specialists. Transportation in soft (unarmored) or hard (armored) vehicles can be arranged as required.
If the client so chooses, visits may be "advanced" and supervised by protection specialists on our staff. The credentials of our language- and area-qualified specialists are impeccable, and they stand ready to coordinate security, communications, logistics and protocol requirements.
Our professionalism in responding to a wide range of corporate emergencies is broadly and enthusiastically acknowledged.
Development of Contingency Plans:
We are prepared to assist corporations in the formulation of crisis-management plans for kidnappings and other extortions, bomb-control guidelines and procedures for evacuating employees from unstable areas.
Threat Evaluations:
Our operatives travel at a moment's notice to evaluate threats levied by political or labor movements, or disgruntled or dismissed employees, calling upon psychiatric resources when necessary. They also arrange for the protection of the individual or asset at hazard.
Hostage Recoveries:
Our 24-hour availability assures immediate response to a kidnapping, and we are prepared to advise and assist the victim corporation through every aspect of the recovery process. Working under corporate decision-makers, we propose strategies, interface with law-enforcement authorities, handle negotiations, and protect and even deliver ransom funds - always with the objective of assuring the survival of the hostage.
Extortion:
We also are called upon to deal with monetary demands levied in connection with threats to harm an employee, damage a critical corporate resource, including a database or website, or contaminate a consumable product. Again, our reaction is immediate, our experience substantial and our paramount concern the protection of the client corporation's personnel and assets.
Emergency Evacuations:
We are ready to travel on short notice to assist in evacuating employees from areas that have turned hazardous. If necessary, we are prepared to employ unconventional extraction methodologies.
Other Crises:
Companies often find themselves unprepared to cope with those who would play hardball, especially in unfamiliar foreign climes. We help level the playing field.
Our extensive network of investigative resources, developed and refined in the course of 35 years, covers not only the United States but extends to the farthest reaches of the globe. And our excellent relations with law-enforcement agencies, both domestic and foreign, facilitate investigative steps and, if required, criminal prosecutions.
We approach all investigations in a prudent, deliberate manner. After analyzing clients' needs, we profer realistic strategies, ranging from the very basic to the exceptionally innovative. Often, a conservative approach is indicated, whereby we undertake an initial inquiry within a defined, reasonable budget. Its results and, when appropriate, suggested avenues of further exploration are presented to the client, who decides whether a fuller effort is warranted. Moreover, we add value to the information generated in the inquiry by collating it into a precise, perceptive, timely report.
DUE DILIGENCE
- Employment candidates, potential acquisitions and prospective joint-venture partners and franchisees
- Review of criminal and civil history, credit history, financial data and history, education history, employment history, governmental and regulatory checks, social media, and reputation via interviews
- Investigations conducted online and in-person; world-wide reach
FRAUD
- Direct financial losses, such as embezzlement or health insurance fraud
- Indirect financial losses, such as kickback/bribery schemes, conflict-of-interest situations or bid-rigging/collusion
- Product diversion investigations and surveillance operations
CONVENTIONAL THEFT
- Breaches of the production-distribution chain through inventory erosion, diversion, hijacking
- Corporate penetration by criminal organizations
UNDERCOVER
- Placing experienced operatives inside client facilities to develop intelligence on thefts
- Setting up reverse stings to expose criminally errant employees, vendors and distributors
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- Market-watch programs
- Controlled "buys" to identify retailers, wholesalers, importers and, ultimately, manufacturers of bogus goods
COMPUTER FORENSICS AND CYBER INVESTIGATIONS
- Data recovery from workstations, laptops and servers
- Fraud and intellectual property theft; identity theft
- Investigation and prevention of intrusions
- Analyzing and documenting user access histories
In a rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape, our comprehensive IT security audits have helped client corporations identify and remedy vulnerabilities in their computer networking systems and on their websites. Our experts have extensive experience in closing holes in computer networks, and limiting the opportunities for hackers to steal, corrupt or delete corporate information or hold it hostage in ransomware attacks.
Our audits include assessments of and recommendations for your organization’s cybersecurity practices, including network infrastructure design, network perimeter protections, anti-malware and data leakage strategy, mobile device security, system security controls, backup and restoration processes, physical access controls, policies and procedures, and security management.
Having audited a wide range of computer systems, we have a great breadth of experience from which to assess the degree to which a computer network conforms to industry best standards and practices. We also have on staff expert programmers, experienced in analyzing website vulnerabilities, and remedying them so that the websites are not hacked.
When negative publicity is posted on the Internet about a person or corporation, we provide assistance in manipulating this information so that it is hidden or more difficult to locate. We also assist in tracing and identifying the individuals who have posted the information.