Protective Intelligence Honors Launched

The Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence has launched a new monthly honor program to recognize the pioneers and thought leaders driving the physical security and protection industry. 

Each month, the program will recognize groundbreaking professionals who have developed either new models or new areas of knowledge, and veteran practitioners who are actively contributing to advancing their industry. 

Among the inaugural trailblazers recognized by the center’s new Protective Intelligence Honors program is the founder and president of Hetherington Group, a cyber investigations consulting, publishing, and training firm. 

Since starting her career as a librarian in the early 1990s, Cynthia Hetherington has led national and international investigations in corporate due diligence and fraud, personal asset recovery, and background checks for more than 25 years. 

Her investigations, which have included the top two Ponzi cases in United States history, have recovered millions of dollars in high-profile corruption cases. 

Hetherington, who specializes in the financial, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications industries, has authored three books on how to carry out investigations. 

Describing how she would like to see physical security evolve in the next decade, Hetherington said: “It’s critical to create clearly defined programs for faster outcomes to prevent violence or danger to our clients.”

In 2015, Hetherington founded the OSMOSIS Institute, which hosts the annual OSMOSIS conference at which hundreds of investigators complete training and gain insights into open source intelligence. She is also the founder of industry newsletter “Data2know: Internet & Online Intelligence.”

Since 1998, she has trained over 180,000 corporate security professionals, accountants, auditors, military intelligence professionals, attorneys, and federal, state, and local agencies in online intelligence best practices. 

“Failure of imagination leads to most disasters, thinking that it’s impossible they might occur. We are honoring the men and women whose remarkable vision, insight, courage and leadership have kept countless lives safe and are influencing an industry shift to a proactive, always-on physical security approach in the public and private sectors,” said Fred Burton, executive director of the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence. 

“The impact of these honorees on history, how we conduct our lives today and the future cannot be overstated, and we are indebted to them for all they have done and continue to do to keep us from harm.”