AI Threat Intelligence for Executive Protection

Most companies still treat executive protection like a travel checklist and a panic button. Meanwhile, attackers are treating it like an intelligence problem.

The proof is in the numbers and the headlines. Business email compromise (BEC) remains one of the highest-loss cybercrime categories, and fraudsters are increasingly pairing it with AI-generated audio and video. The 2024 incident where a deepfaked video meeting convinced an employee to wire $25 million wasn’t “just” a finance failure—it was a failure to recognize that digital deception now drives physical-world decisions.

This post is part of our AI in Cybersecurity series, and executive protection is one of the clearest places where AI earns its keep. Not because it replaces people, but because it connects signals humans can’t realistically track across social platforms, domain registrations, travel plans, geopolitics, and internal security telemetry—fast enough to matter.

Cyber threats now create physical outcomes

The key shift is simple: cyber reconnaissance is increasingly the first step of a physical attack. Adversaries don’t need to “hack” a building when they can scrape an exec’s routines, family details, and travel patterns, then use AI to impersonate authority and trigger real-world actions.

A modern executive threat chain often looks like this:

1. Open-source collection: social posts, conference agendas, corporate bios, property records, flight patterns.
2. Target shaping: identifying assistants, finance approvers, security drivers, and hotel habits.
3. AI-enabled deception: cloned voices, deepfake video calls, spoofed domains, fake calendar invites.
4. Action in the real world: fraudulent wire transfers, stalker confrontation, doxxing-driven harassment, or physical approach during travel.

That chain is why “cyber” and “physical” security can’t operate as separate kingdoms anymore. If your cyber team detects an impersonation domain and your physical team is briefing the executive next week, you’re already behind.

Snippet-worthy reality: Executive protection fails when digital warning signs aren’t treated as physical risk indicators.

Why executives are being targeted more—and why timing matters

Executives are high-leverage targets. One compromised identity can move money, expose M&A plans, influence public statements, or create chaos inside an organization.

Two trends are making the situation worse:

The normalization of doxxing and swatting

Doxxing and swatting used to be framed as niche internet cruelty. Now it’s a corporate risk. Publishing an executive’s home address, family details, or kids’ schools turns online hostility into a map. Once those details are out, “personal security” becomes an enterprise problem—HR, legal, comms, physical security, and cyber all get pulled in.

Travel creates predictable verification gaps

Executives travel constantly, and attackers love predictable moments:

• boarding flights (limited connectivity)
• hotel check-ins (high distraction)
• conferences (busy schedules, many inbound requests)
• time zone transitions (fatigue + rushed decisions)

Historically, criminals timed campaigns for holiday weekends or late Friday. The newer play is more personal: time the con to the executive’s itinerary so verification is hardest.

This is where AI-driven threat intelligence becomes operationally useful: it can watch for the “setup” activity—impersonation accounts, spoofed domains, chatter about an event—before the attacker triggers the high-pressure moment.

Converged security needs AI, or it stays theoretical

Converged security—uniting cyber and physical security under one risk framework—has been discussed for years. It often stalls for a boring reason: manual coordination doesn’t scale.

AI changes the practicality of convergence because it can:

• ingest high-volume external data (social, dark web, OSINT)
• correlate it with internal telemetry (email security, IAM, endpoint, SIEM)
• score and route alerts to the right owners (exec protection, SOC, fraud, legal)

Recorded Future’s 2025 threat intelligence research shows the organizational shift is already underway:

• 13% of organizations integrate physical security into intelligence programs
• 47% link intelligence with risk management
• 58% use threat intelligence to inform business risk assessments
• 43% apply it to strategic planning

The direction is clear: threat intelligence is becoming enterprise-grade decision support, not a niche feed for analysts.

The practical model: “one risk picture”

Here’s what works in the real world: build a shared, continuously updated risk view that both cyber and executive protection teams trust.

A strong “one risk picture” includes:

• Identity risk: leaked credentials, password reuse, exposed MFA methods
• Impersonation risk: spoofed domains, fake social profiles, deepfake attempts
• Threat actor intent: chatter, targeting patterns, past behavior
• Physical proximity risk: event location, hotel patterns, known protest routes
• Operational context: executive travel, assistants’ access, approval workflows

AI’s job is to connect those dots early enough to act.

What AI-enabled threat intelligence looks like in executive protection

The best executive protection programs treat threat intelligence like a daily operating system, not an occasional briefing. That means monitoring, correlation, and automation—then human judgment where it counts.

Social and open-source monitoring (and what to do with it)

Monitoring social platforms and forums is table stakes. The harder part is relevance.

AI helps by classifying signals into buckets that drive specific actions:

• Hostility signals: escalating language, coordinated harassment, fixation on an event
• Exposure signals: posting addresses, family info, routine details, license plates
• Impersonation signals: new accounts mimicking the exec, brand lookalikes
• Logistics signals: leaked itineraries, hotel details, conference side events

Actionable outputs should be concrete:

• request takedowns for impersonation accounts
• pre-brief the exec with “do not engage” guidance
• adjust arrival/departure routes at events
• tighten comms verification for assistants and finance

Deepfake and impersonation defense: assume “proof” is forgeable

If your process relies on recognizing a face or voice, it’s already outdated. The fix isn’t “train people to spot deepfakes.” It’s to redesign workflows so appearance isn’t a control.

What I’ve found works best is a verification stack:

1. Out-of-band verification: a separate channel (known phone number, secure app)
2. Transaction friction: two-person approval, mandatory waiting period for high-value wires
3. Identity hardening: executive and assistant account protections, phishing-resistant MFA
4. Impersonation monitoring: alerts on spoofed domains, lookalike registration patterns

AI contributes by spotting impersonation infrastructure early—especially domain registration patterns and cloned web assets that appear days before they’re used.

Geopolitical and event intelligence tied to itineraries

Executive travel risk isn’t “country risk.” It’s event-and-neighborhood risk on specific dates. That’s why static travel briefings fail.

A modern approach blends:

• local protest and unrest indicators
• online chatter about a venue or keynote
• crime patterns around hotels and transit nodes
• targeted hostility toward the executive or company

One stat should bother you: an executive protection standard report found about 26% of organizations rarely or never brief executives before travel. Even when briefings happen, they’re often generic. AI-enabled intelligence can make briefings specific, timely, and updated as conditions change.

Turning threat intelligence into an executive protection program (not a dashboard)

The biggest barriers aren’t about data access. They’re operational:

• 48% cite poor integration with existing tools
• 46% cite information overload
• 46% cite lack of contextual relevance

Those are solvable, but only if you design for action.

Build a “protect the person” workflow, end to end

Start by mapping who must do what when an alert hits.

A practical playbook includes:

• Detection: impersonation domain registered, doxxing post appears, hostile chatter spikes
• Triage: credibility score + confidence level + urgency window
• Ownership: SOC vs fraud vs executive protection vs legal
• Response: takedown requests, comms to assistants, travel route adjustments, law enforcement liaison
• Post-incident: update executive exposure profile, remove data broker listings, tighten approval controls

If you can’t answer “who owns this at 2 a.m. while the exec is in transit,” you don’t have a workflow—you have a hope.

Use composite risk scoring (and be honest about what it can’t do)

Composite risk scoring is useful when it drives prioritization, not fear. The point is to rank what deserves immediate action.

A sensible executive risk score blends:

• digital exposure level (personal data leaks, credential exposure)
• active targeting signals (threat chatter, doxxing attempts)
• impersonation activity (spoofed domains, fake profiles)
• travel/event sensitivity (high-profile appearances, volatile locations)

AI can calculate and update the score continuously, but humans should set thresholds and escalation paths. Otherwise, teams either ignore the score or overreact to it.

Reduce executive “attack surface” with a 30-day sprint

If you need a fast start before Q1 travel ramps up, run a focused 30-day effort:

• Inventory executive and assistant accounts; enforce phishing-resistant MFA
• Remove sensitive personal data from major data brokers (where feasible)
• Set up monitoring for impersonation domains and social lookalikes
• Implement a wire/approval process that doesn’t rely on voice or video
• Create travel briefing templates that update within 24 hours of departure

This isn’t glamorous, but it prevents the exact scenarios attackers exploit.

Where this is heading in 2026: automated protection, not automated panic

Executive protection is becoming one of the highest-stakes applications of AI in cybersecurity because it sits at the intersection of fraud, identity, physical safety, and brand trust.

The organizations doing this well will look different operationally:

• Threat intelligence feeds directly into SOC and executive protection queues.
• Impersonation infrastructure is flagged early and acted on quickly.
• Travel risk is dynamic and itinerary-aware.
• Verification processes assume synthetic media exists and plan around it.

If you’re responsible for security, risk, or executive operations, the next step is straightforward: audit how a digital impersonation turns into a physical-world decision inside your company. Where does a fake meeting invite get trusted? Who can approve a wire while in transit? Who briefs leadership before public events?

You don’t need perfect convergence. You need measurable reduction in the time between signal and protection. What would it change for your team if you could spot the setup—days before the moment of impact?