How to Leverage Geopolitical Risk Intelligence in Security Planning
- Keith Pachulski
- May 5
- 13 min read
What Is the BGRI?
The BlackRock Geopolitical Risk Indicator (BGRI) is a quantitative tool designed to measure how much geopolitical events are influencing financial market sentiment. It doesn’t rely on subjective analyst reports—instead, it continuously scans a vast array of financial news sources and applies natural language processing (NLP) techniques to detect changes in how often and in what context certain geopolitical risks are mentioned.
This matters because markets are highly responsive to emerging threats. If a major cyberattack, escalating military conflict, or global supply chain disruption is brewing, the BGRI typically reflects that before traditional intelligence cycles catch up. It's not just an academic exercise—it’s a near-real-time pulse on where investors believe risk is heading.
The BGRI tracks ten geopolitical themes including:
U.S.-China strategic competition
Russia-NATO tensions
Cyberattacks with cross-border implications
Terrorism in Western economies
Gulf instability (e.g., Iran–Saudi tensions)
North Korea provocations
European fragmentation
Global tech decoupling
Climate/geopolitical linkages
U.S. domestic political instability
Each theme is updated regularly and shows a sentiment trend over time. Spikes in any given area indicate a measurable rise in perceived instability, often weeks before physical-world consequences fully manifest.
Using BGRI as a Tactical Security Asset
This tool isn’t just useful for economists—it’s a direct input for physical and cyber risk strategy. When the BGRI indicates a spike in "Major Cyberattack" risk, that’s not abstract. It could reflect active probing of global infrastructure, a surge in ransomware chatter, or even a pending nation-state operation. For example:
In late 2023, a sharp rise in BGRI cyber indicators coincided with the MOVEit zero-day exploitation campaign, just days before mass exploitation began. Organizations that were monitoring these trends could have flagged similar applications or engaged their patching teams earlier.
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the BGRI’s "Russia-NATO tensions" indicator began accelerating weeks before tanks crossed borders. Security leaders who adjusted travel security, reassessed Russian supply chain dependencies, or deployed heightened OT/ICS monitoring were better prepared.
These aren’t hypotheticals. The BGRI is a way to anticipate systemic shocks that have real-world impacts on data security, personnel protection, and operational continuity.
Field-Level Implementation Examples
To move this from insight to action, here’s how different parts of a security program can use BGRI data in the field:
Virtual CISO / Strategic Advisor: Include monthly or quarterly BGRI summaries in executive briefings. Pair them with changes to internal threat posture. For example, a spike in "China-U.S. competition" could justify a review of remote worker VPN usage or potential IP risk in East Asia-based vendors.
Threat Intelligence / SOC Teams: When the BGRI spikes on themes like “Major Cyberattack” or “Tech Decoupling,” overlay that trend with your SIEM alerts, threat feeds, or industry ISAC reports. Are there increased port scans on your perimeter? Is there a parallel spike in TTP chatter from known APTs?
Physical Security / Executive Protection: A growing "Gulf instability" signal can impact clients with travel in the UAE, Qatar, or surrounding regions. Route planning, local liaison contact reviews, and quick deployment readiness all come into play.
Business Continuity Teams: Use the BGRI to inform scenario planning. For instance, “European fragmentation” or “U.S. domestic instability” rising may justify tabletop exercises focused on interstate logistics interruptions or civil unrest response for personnel in key urban hubs.
This is a macro-level threat lens with actionable downstream impact. It's especially valuable when traditional security signals are silent—giving you strategic foresight when other tools only show what's already broken.
What’s Spiking Right Now?
The BlackRock Geopolitical Risk Indicator (BGRI) is showing sharp movement across several major categories this month. If you’re looking at the broader threat landscape—cyber, physical, or operational—it’s clear that pressure is building in multiple theaters.
These aren't just abstract global issues; they represent real-world challenges that can directly impact business continuity, risk exposure, and the demands we place on our security programs.
I've broken down five of the top geopolitical shifts BGRI is currently flagging, along with field-relevant implications for both cybersecurity and physical security. These are not hypotheticals—they should influence how we're advising clients, adjusting postures, and allocating security resources.
U.S.–China Strategic Tensions Continue to Escalate
The U.S. recently imposed another round of tariffs targeting critical Chinese industries, particularly semiconductors and green tech. In response, China stepped up naval drills in the Taiwan Strait and ramped up diplomatic pressure against Western-aligned countries in the Indo-Pacific.
While trade is the surface issue, the real pressure point is Washington’s attempt to choke off China's access to advanced chipmaking technology, while Beijing is increasingly tying its economic survival to security ambitions in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Cyber: We're already seeing an uptick in cyber-espionage activity linked to APT groups like Mustang Panda and APT41. Organizations with R&D, manufacturing, or supply chain exposure in Asia need enhanced anomaly detection, outbound data monitoring, and geo-blocking on remote infrastructure.
Physical: Companies with assets or personnel in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or nearby countries should have a pre-defined contingency plan for political instability or conflict escalation. Think alternate travel routes, facility lockdown procedures, and embedded intelligence liaisons for real-time monitoring.
Surge in Cyberattack Activity—Ransomware, Infrastructure, and Espionage
Recent weeks have seen ransomware attacks hitting multiple European ports and energy facilities. The likely culprit being loosely affiliated Russian-speaking threat actors pushing simultaneous disruptive campaigns across critical infrastructure targets.
Why now? The geopolitical climate is permissive, law enforcement coordination is slowing, and sanctions on Russia have driven a convergence between state interests and cybercriminal operations. The energy sector, in particular, is being tested as Europe heads into summer grid demand.
Cyber: It’s time to revalidate patching cadence and internal segmentation. Focus specifically on lateral movement containment—many of these actors are using post-exploitation tools like Cobalt Strike and RMM software to evade detection.
Response Readiness: If you're not running bi-weekly ransomware simulations with actual endpoint kill chains, you're underprepared. Organizations need real-time backup validation, pre-negotiated IR retainers, and hardened cloud admin access pathways.
Tensions Near NATO’s Eastern Flank—Belarus and Russia Conducting Joint Drills
Belarus has begun joint live-fire exercises with Russia along its western border, just miles from NATO territory. This comes amid rising Belarusian rhetoric against Poland and the Baltic states, plus disinformation operations targeting election infrastructure across the region.
What looks like saber-rattling is better understood as gray zone maneuvering, and it’s aimed at destabilizing public trust ahead of EU elections and deterring further NATO support for Ukraine.
Physical: Any business operating in Poland, Lithuania, or even bordering Slovakia should be reviewing evacuation protocols, ensuring employees can be reached securely, and reevaluating facility access control for increased local threat activity.
Cyber: Watch for coordinated cyber-physical disruption. Russian-linked actors may target Eastern European logistics firms, rail infrastructure, or local government portals. Ensure region-specific SOC playbooks are up to date with recent IOCs and MITRE mappings.
Rising Global Protectionism and Trade Retaliation
Following recent U.S. tariffs, several countries including China, Brazil, and Turkey have responded with their own restrictions. We're seeing increased customs delays, shipping route changes, and retaliatory regulations on Western tech and telecom providers.
Economic policy shifts like this often create instability that opens doors for exploitation by threat actors
Continuity Planning: If your supply chain runs through contested trade corridors, build redundancy now. Identify logistics choke points, develop backup vendor networks, and map risk exposure by country of origin.
Cyber Intelligence: Keep a close watch on partner networks and contractors in countries with rising anti-West sentiment. Trade retaliation often parallels a spike in IP theft, data manipulation, or targeted phishing—especially if your IP is tied to strategic sectors like defense, aerospace, or AI.
Middle East Instability—Political Shifts and Targeted Attacks
Over the last two weeks, regional unrest has intensified. There were coordinated drone strikes against logistics infrastructure in Jordan and increasing anti-West demonstrations in parts of the Gulf. Iran is again expanding its influence through proxy groups, while the Israel-Hezbollah flashpoint remains on a hair trigger.
For companies with any physical presence in the region—or with energy dependencies tied to Middle East production—this is a critical moment.
Travel Risk: Organizations should pause all non-essential travel to affected regions. If you must deploy, ensure GPS tracking is live, pre-travel briefings are mandatory, and you have medevac support on contract. Don’t assume embassy support is sufficient.
Infrastructure Protection: Energy clients should double-check physical access logs, camera coverage, and guard force reliability. Likewise, ICS/SCADA protections should be audited for exposed HMIs and default credential risks.
If you're running a proactive security program, these aren't just headlines—they're triggers to re-prioritize projects, reallocate resources, and update your assumptions.
Implications for Physical & Cybersecurity
Knowing which geopolitical risks are rising is one thing—translating those into operational posture is where value gets delivered. This section is about moving from intelligence to execution. If you’re advising stakeholders, managing a facility, running a SOC, or leading a security program, the shifts flagged in the BGRI aren’t background noise—they’re signals to act. They should influence your threat modeling, risk prioritization, and the timing of defensive investments.
The current global environment isn’t stable—it’s dynamic and interconnected. A drone strike in Jordan can cause downstream effects in oil futures, which ripple into supply chain delays in the U.S., which open the door for cyber extortion campaigns leveraging those disruptions. If your security program isn’t bridging the gap between geopolitical triggers and tactical readiness, that’s a risk vector in itself.
Cybersecurity Implications
A global rise in geopolitical tension often precedes an increase in asymmetric cyber activity. We’re already seeing more aggressive behavior from both state-linked and criminal groups—targeting critical infrastructure, logistics, and companies with geopolitical relevance. Framing this solely as ‘nation-state activity’ misses the point—commercial targets are often collateral damage or direct objectives
One of the first places this shows up is in the gaps between IT and security teams. Threat actors exploit friction: unpatched middleware, overly permissive identity controls, and flat networks with no real segmentation. As geopolitical pressure increases, so does the importance of cleaning up internal technical debt.
Update Threat Models and Internal Assumptions
You can’t defend what you don’t understand. And right now, many security teams are still relying on outdated attacker profiles that no longer reflect today’s reality. Threat groups are shifting tools, infrastructure, and targeting logic in response to sanctions, law enforcement pressure, and new vulnerabilities. This isn’t just about dropping new IOCs into your SIEM—it’s about recalibrating your detection strategy.
Re-map your critical business assets to attacker motivations. Are you in defense tech? Semiconductor manufacturing? Cloud services for critical industries? That determines who’s watching you and what they’ll use.
Prioritize TTP coverage over signature-based detection. Validate that your EDR and SIEM tools can pick up behaviors—not just known indicators.
Build joint workflows between threat intel and operations. Threat modeling shouldn’t be static—it needs to evolve every quarter based on risk intel inputs.
Strengthen Identity and Access Management
Identity continues to be the lowest-hanging fruit. Most modern intrusions—whether via APT or ransomware affiliate—start with compromised credentials and session hijacking. As foreign adversaries and proxies target cloud infrastructure, the blast radius of a single credential compromise is enormous.
Move toward phishing-resistant MFA now. Not tomorrow. If you're still using SMS-based two-factor auth for admin-level systems, you're a soft target.
Review privileged account use across cloud platforms—are roles scoped to job function, or are admins using inherited privileges without time-bound access?
Monitor session hijacks and token replay attacks—especially where shared devices or remote sessions are common.
Ransomware Resilience Is No Longer Optional
This is playing out in real time—critical ports, healthcare systems, and energy infrastructure are already under pressure. Most campaigns involve known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, or RMM software abuse—not novel 0-days.
Conduct live-fire ransomware simulations. Don’t just review the IR plan—execute it under pressure.
Validate the restore time and completeness of your backups. If the attacker can access them, they're worthless.
Segment backup infrastructure physically and logically. Treat backup access credentials like you would production access keys.
Physical Security Implications
Physical security is often treated as downstream or reactive—but right now, it needs to be upstream. As regional tensions rise, physical assets—data centers, logistics hubs, executive offices—become viable soft targets in broader strategic campaigns. Facilities in high-risk areas are more vulnerable to both direct action (e.g., sabotage or targeted attacks) and indirect impact (e.g., protests, civil unrest, or infrastructure strain).
Security programs must now operate in a more hybrid, fluid state—combining fixed asset protection with mobile, responsive capability.
Elevate Security Posture in High-Risk Regions
If you have assets or personnel in geopolitical flashpoints—Eastern Europe, Gulf states, Southeast Asia—you should not be operating under normal security posture. Increased military activity, disinformation campaigns, and kinetic threats demand an adaptive posture that can flex with changing threat levels.
Maintain updated travel and threat briefings for personnel. No one should be traveling blind into contested regions.
Harden facility perimeters, review ingress/egress protocols, and establish liaison relationships with local security providers or consular services.
Activate contingency staffing or relocation plans for critical operations personnel.
Audit Perimeter and Remote Access Systems
Many physical security systems still run on legacy infrastructure: outdated cameras, badge readers not tied to current employee directories, or DVRs exposed to the internet. As tensions rise, so do low-sophistication attacks that target overlooked physical entry points.
Verify access logs and badge system accuracy. Are former employees still active in the system? Are there anomalies in off-hour access?
Integrate physical and cyber controls where possible—badging should correlate with active directory and be monitored as part of insider threat programs.
Secure DVRs and camera systems. Change default credentials. Place them behind VPN or segmented VLANs.
Plan for Civil Unrest and Domestic Disruption
Not all threats are foreign. Domestic political volatility—especially around elections or civil rights flashpoints—can manifest in protests, workplace disruption, or flash mob targeting of facilities. If you operate in major metro areas, this needs to be factored into your readiness plans.
Map protest-prone areas near your facilities. Understand traffic flow, crowd dynamics, and proximity to police staging zones.
Design lockdown, shelter-in-place, or emergency egress procedures that are fast, simple, and staff-ready.
Pre-arrange private security or transport services that can be activated within hours—not days.
Real-World Application
We’ve walked through where geopolitical risks are rising and what that means across cyber and physical domains. Now it’s time to make this actionable. This section is designed for execution—for teams that need to operationalize this intelligence now, not later. Whether you’re building a security roadmap, briefing executives, or auditing your team’s readiness, these are the takeaways to act on.
Integrate Geopolitical Risk into Routine Threat Intel Cycles
What to do
Don’t treat geopolitical risk as a side-channel. It should be a core input into your organization’s threat intelligence cycle—just like malware IOCs or sector-specific threat reports.
How to do it
Set up a monthly or quarterly BGRI review alongside your existing intel updates. Identify which geopolitical categories are trending and cross-reference with your org’s sector and geographic exposure.
Assign an analyst or team to own geopolitical threat tracking. They should curate risk shifts and provide contextual analysis tied to your environment (e.g., “Rising U.S.-China tensions likely to increase IP targeting for firms using offshore R&D in Asia”).
Use geopolitics as a lens in red team/blue team planning. If BGRI flags “Major Cyberattack” as elevated, bake that into your next tabletop or detection engineering sprint.
What it looks like in practice
Intel briefings include a “geopolitical risk heat map” matched to executive travel, facility locations, and supply chain routes.
SOC teams are briefed on what TTPs to expect from state-aligned adversaries tied to the highest-risk regions.
Business units are proactively informed of increased risks tied to specific events (e.g., elections in fragile democracies, sanctions regimes).
Build Flexibility into Physical Security Protocols
What to do
Your physical security posture needs to be as dynamic as the threats it faces. Static policies won’t hold in volatile environments—especially when disruptions happen with little warning.
How to do it
Define escalation levels (e.g., Tier 1: stable, Tier 2: increased risk, Tier 3: active threat). Each should trigger specific physical security changes such as access restriction, enhanced personnel screening, or deployment of private security support.
Align site security managers with real-time geopolitical monitoring sources (like BGRI, embassy bulletins, and region-specific risk feeds). Give them decision-making authority to adjust posture based on threat level, not just corporate approval cycles.
Develop pre-positioned kits or procedures for rapid response—this includes mobile surveillance equipment, hardened comms, and local liaison protocols.
What it looks like in practice
A facility in Warsaw immediately moves to Tier 2 posture after cross-border exercises are announced in Belarus. Entry access is restricted to essential personnel, and enhanced surveillance is activated.
A Gulf-region site receives updated drone mitigation protocols after a rise in proxy attacks on critical infrastructure.
Regional security teams have localized SOPs for protest-related disruptions, with built-in comms plans and emergency transportation.
Use Intelligence to Drive Security Investment and Board Conversations
What to do
Security programs often struggle to connect budget requests to real-world risks in a way executives respect. Geopolitical risk gives you a language leadership understands—strategic, financial, and operational.
How to do it
Tie budget or staffing asks directly to geopolitical shifts, not abstract “cyber risk.” Example: “Given the rise in BGRI’s cyberattack index, and our operational exposure in targeted verticals, we’re seeking funding to isolate our backups and deploy off-network admin access methods.”
Translate geopolitical indicators into executive-relevant impact: business continuity, legal exposure, investor risk, and brand equity.
Use third-party data to validate urgency (e.g., reference BGRI, World Economic Forum threat forecasts, recent incidents in your sector).
What it looks like in practice
You walk into the boardroom with a one-page graphic showing the BGRI trend on “Russia-NATO tension” and tie it to your facilities in Poland and your shipment delays out of Lithuania.
You get approval for an endpoint hardening initiative tied to increased ransomware exposure in critical infrastructure.
Your CFO asks, “Why are we still running OT systems with default credentials in a region flagged as high-risk for kinetic escalation?”
Stress-Test the Cross-Functional Response
What to do
Security readiness is rarely siloed. When geopolitical threats escalate, the weakest link may not be your firewall—it could be legal not knowing who approves breach disclosure in the event of a nation-state intrusion. You need to test your entire response chain.
How to do it
Run joint tabletop exercises that include cyber, physical, legal, communications, and business operations. Simulate scenarios where geopolitical events disrupt multiple domains at once (e.g., ransomware + border closure).
Identify decision-making bottlenecks. Who calls the lockdown? Who triggers off-site backup restoration? Who briefs the media?
Use BGRI shifts as scenario seeds. If “U.S.-China competition” spikes, build a scenario around Chinese APTs targeting your dev environments or retaliatory export controls disrupting your logistics flow.
What it looks like in practice
A ransomware drill reveals your backup vendor has a 48-hour SLA—too slow for your recovery window. You renegotiate.
A physical threat scenario reveals your regional GM doesn't know where the emergency supplies are stored. You fix the distribution plan.
Your IR and comms teams coordinate a dual-playbook for both public breach notifications and government liaison, pre-written and vetted.
Make Geopolitics Part of Your Operational Core
If you only glance at geopolitical risk during annual planning or quarterly board reviews, you’re behind. These events move fast, and the downstream impacts are not confined to governments or militaries—they land on your infrastructure, your vendors, and your people.
This is the time to bake geopolitical intelligence into your decision-making rhythm. That means real-time monitoring, cross-functional escalation planning, and continuously validating your assumptions. It also means having the discipline to act—not just track.
If you're looking to move beyond awareness and into execution, Red Cell Security can help.
We work directly with organizations to operationalize intelligence—turning complex geopolitical signals into clear, actionable security strategy. Whether you need a threat-driven facility assessment, a geopolitical risk briefing for your executive team, or to stress-test your incident response plan under real-world scenarios, we’re built for that.
Let’s make sure your security program isn’t just reactive—it’s anticipatory.
Reach out today to schedule a consult or threat posture review.
Keith Pachulski
Red Cell Security, LLC
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