Looking Back: Hetherington Group’s Focus on Training and Digital Executive Protection
As 2025 draws to a close, one truth has become clear over the last 12 months: the need for open-source intelligence (OSINT) expertise and tradecraft only continues to grow. This year, Hetherington Group’s OSINT Academy saw a record number of professionals trained in open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques. We also saw a record number of executives and high-profile individuals engaged with us for our Digital Vulnerability Program (DVP), as well as other investigative services. Why? Because OSINT continues to fill critical information gaps that investigators, analysts and security professionals must have to fully protect people, assets and brands.
OSINT is a Necessary Step to Strengthen Executive Protection & Security
Open-source intelligence remains one of the most effective tools for identifying digital vulnerabilities that can impact the safety and security of executives and high net worth individuals. In 2025, we witnessed a paradigm shift: organizations no longer just want to find digital breadcrumbs; they want to eliminate them. Executives, celebrities, and high-net-worth individuals have become prime targets for threat actors who want to use personal data for exploitation.
One of the biggest drivers behind this surge in interest is the growth in targeted threats and attacks. From swatting to doxxing, corporate extortion to executive impersonation, high net worth individuals and executives continue to see their privacy eroded due to the exposure of private information. This exposure goes beyond what is shared by data brokers. We’ve seen how easily an exposed email, vacation post, or real estate record can snowball into a full-blown security event. This is why OSINT is key to ensuring all digital breadcrumbs are found and mitigated before they are used for exploitation.
Recently, we worked with a client who was mentioned in an online post by an individual who claimed to have their home address and other personal details. This online post threatened the executive. Through a social media account, we quickly uncovered who that account belonged to and were able to mitigate the potential threat for this client. That’s why our focus this year extends beyond detection. Through our services and our training, we taught investigators and security professionals how to mitigate exposure through online information removal, digital footprint reduction, and proactive monitoring.
Monitoring for Potential Exposure & Threats Must Include OSINT-Trained Analysts
Throughout 2025, our Risk Monitoring services also continued to operate 24/7 for our customers to detect any online exposures of threats impacting individuals or brands. From social media mentions to forums and encrypted markets, our analysts delivered live alerts that uncovered threats before they materialized into physical harm. While tools and platforms may help uncover exposures and threats, it takes trained and OSINT certified analysts that put the pieces together to understand the impact this could have on a client.
This year, we also continued to work together with our clients to also provide education about best practices to stay anonymous online, to further reduce those exposures. When we uncovered an online post that could create an exposure, we quickly worked to remove and remediate it. Without our trained analysts, information may have persisted, leading to an increased security threat to the executive and his/her family. It’s the ‘human in the loop’ that truly made our Risk Monitoring solution indispensable for our clients.
OSINT Tradecraft: The Need for Training Continues to Grow
Through our training division, OSINT Academy, professionals learned to uncover the very details that adversaries use to build threat profiles: public records, property ownership, unredacted business affiliations, family member identifiers, exposed social media content, and more. With over 750 students trained this year, Hg’s OSINT Academy remains the gold standard for teaching the tradecraft of open-source intelligence and digital investigations.
Not only did we train analysts and investigators in 2025 on tradecraft, but we also educated executives and their families who are part of our Digital Vulnerability Program (DVP). This program provided direct support to families of corporate leaders, as well as the security teams that support them, helping them eliminate online risk to their privacy at the source. As part of this service, we educate security teams and the executives themselves about online security best practices. Through this education, clients were empowered to control their own digital presence, informed by our staff about where vulnerabilities exist and how to stop online exposure through social media and other platforms and apps.
Practicing What We Teach Using OSINT Best Practices
What we emphasized in 2025 to our clients and our students is the accessibility of information online – either how to use it for intelligence purposes, or how threat actors use it to potentially harm people and brands. Because everything is out there, analysts must understand how to acquire it, analyze it and report on it. And executives must understand how teams can find it and remove it to reduce risk. Hg’s moto has always been, “We practice what we teach.” We teach how to use the data in investigations, due diligence and intelligence development. We practice finding and removing that same data to keep people safe and secure, to deliver the normalcy that so many high-profile individuals crave.
Looking ahead to 2026, the trend is clear: the digital world is not slowing down, and neither are the threats and information exposures developed through open-source information. But with the right skills, tools, and training, investigators and security professionals can use OSINT to develop meaningful intelligence or proactively mitigate online threats to people’s security.
To our clients, students, and partners, we thank you for standing on the digital frontlines with us this year. The mission continues to create a safer world into 2026 and beyond.
