Companies in the banking and payments sector are growing increasingly wary of threats from online operations, and job postings related to cyber operations, cyber-crime intelligence, cyber threat, fraud, cybersecurity, and incidence response that have mentions of Intelligence Collection Disciplines (INTs) have vastly increased, found GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData also notes that the specific INT job postings that have increased include roles for experience in gathering Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). As well as this, the number of companies/sectors that are posting these roles are increasing as well.

The number of companies posting jobs around INTs increased from 162 in April 2021 to 312 in April 2022. In the same period, posted jobs increased to 1,017 from 802, highlighting a growth of 27%.

Sherla Sriprada, Business Fundamentals Analyst at GlobalData, adds: “Aerospace and defense, technology and communications, business and consumer services were some of the sectors where jobs related to INTs were trending. For instance, KBR Inc posted a HUMINT Analyst role requiring experience in identifying national security information sources for developing new lines of effort for Foreign Intelligence (FI), Counterintelligence (CI), and Cyber Intelligence from overt HUMINT sources for its strategic clients postured globally. However, INTs have moved beyond conventional sectors as more products or services go online, and information needs become diverse in a dynamic environment.”

In the Banking sector, a Security Research Operations Specialist role at Mastercard requires working knowledge of OSINT network scanning repositories such as Shodan, Censys and BinaryEdge.

Retail companies are also looking at roles for protecting personnel, property, assets, information, and brands from threats, both internal and external. For instance, Nike’s Brand Protection Analyst role requires experience in gathering OSINT and an understanding of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Sriprada adds: “Companies are increasingly looking at INTs to secure data intelligence for actionable insights. New and emerging technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, analytic modelling, new sensor types such as imagery/video/WAMI/GMTI, object-based production, crowd-sourced data labelling are expected to further enhance analytic insights.”