How to avoid being a victim of crime – by the world’s top security expert

Kate Bright started out as an executive assistant 25 years ago – now it’s her job to keep the 1 per cent safe in a perilous world

Kate Bright pickpocketed her friend on a Tube escalator recently, just to see how long it would take her to notice. 
“She couldn’t believe how easy it was for me to do it,” says Bright. 
Six-foot, blonde and the founder of Umbra International, Bright is one of the 6.8 per cent of women out of 16,000 close protection operators. Having started out as an executive assistant 25 years ago, she became a chartered security professional working with high-net worth individuals to keep them safe. 
Her specialism is working in security for family office, the term used for a private company that invests and manages the wealth of a well-off family. While few of us require an assessment of our home security system, and fewer still a discrete personal security detail at Glastonbury Festival or for a camping trip in the Mongolian steppe, much of what Bright instructs her clients about is relevant to the ordinary person who wants to stay safe. 
Bodyguard is an evocative word, one that she feels no longer reflects the role of personal security in 2024. Bright is trying to shift the perception of the sector from physical protection to a more holistic one. The nature of risk has changed. It’s not just physical anymore, but digital, reputational and even emotional. 
Random violent attacks, riots and online hate grip the news. And yes, there are warnings about those pickpockets on the Tube.
“We’re living in a post-modern, perma-crisis of geo-political shifts,” says Bright, as we chat in her Mayfair office. “There is organised and randomised crime. One in four people in the world at any given moment is subject to mental problems. Times have never been more dangerous and more uncertain.”
Those she helps include everyone from young Instagram influencers navigating personal and digital security, or business people who’ve raised and sold a Unicorn (a startup that surpasses $1 billion) and are navigating a new world of wealth, through to established family offices who want to ensure the next generation are emotionally fit to inherit; getting one such client into rehab and a better place with their life is one of her proudest achievements. 
“If wealth is squandered, that is a bad day at the office,” says Bright, who firmly believes in the power of what great wealth done well can achieve. “That’s philanthropy and it is a positive thing for society.”
We are in the midst of a so-called great wealth transfer; over the next two decades, an estimated $84.4 trillion in assets will be passed down from the silent generation (those born in the mid 1920s to the mid 1940s) and baby boomers to their loved ones. “It’s a big moment in the private wealth and investment sense in the family office sector.”
The things that can make a difference can be surprising; making sure a wealthy teenager has good role models around them (ex-sports people in the family team is a tried and tested Bright technique) so they don’t lose their head when they get to university or suddenly find themselves living in a central London apartment. 
“Making friends and dating the wrong people, it’s not just a young person thing. We all are trying to make sure that any association we have is genuine.”
And Bright doesn’t want to empower high-net wealth individuals to live safe and secure lives, but communities and society as a whole. 
“That’s my real passion area. Why should we as a business and sector only protect those who can afford it?”
Bright has distilled the four pillars of modern security down to physical, digital, reputational and emotional resilience. Here is what is in her tool kit – and should be in yours too. 
It is usually a physical threat that first leads a client to get in touch, such as a burglary, or a mugging. Watch thefts in London rose from 57,468 in 2022 to 72,756 in 2023. 
“Something you learn when you’re training is when to get out of the way and when to listen to your gut. Don’t wait for things to not be right,” says Bright. “But also don’t live your life as if something is going to happen. If you want to wear a nice watch, you can.”
Bright will cover hers when she is walking around. “I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m having to defend it. That’s an easy, quick win for me.”
Looking like she’s on a mission is another tactic when she’s out on the street. “I understand that’s easier as a six-foot woman, but I’m making sure I’m not disorientated. I look where I’m going. I only have one headphone in it at a time. 
“You see people walking down the street shouting into the ether on handsfree. There’s something really unsafe about that too.” 
Still, she says: “If you’re swinging loads of bags down Bond Street and dripping jewellery, that is your choice. We don’t want to change your lifestyle, we want to help you amplify it.”
For such clients she will discuss having adequate insurance, perhaps dropping bags off intermittently with a driver, and simple things like making sure your phone is charged. 
More universally we can all benefit from not falling into a predictable routine. “Not only is it a counter-surveillance technique to keep varying your routes, it’s a really good way of enlivening your brain.” 
Bright’s training team will work with clients to simulate everything from spiking, to not over at-home security.”
“There’s a lot of fraud that our clients are experiencing, not on the street, that’s quite rare. But in the environments our clients will be moving in, there’s been an increase in people not being who they say they are, trying to access information from you.”
In 25 years we’ve gone from making sure we’re safe as a human being to making sure we’re safe existentially. “Hacks, breaches, interceptions; everybody with an internet presence today will be aware of the risks,” says Bright, handing me an Umbra-branded webcam cover. 
She is suspicious about the technology we surround ourselves with. “If you want to communicate something safely, do it in person. Your phone will hear you and then serve you up an ad on Instagram.”
That can be convenient and handy if you’re planning a holiday, but what if you’re talking about things coming up business wise that are confidential?
Our online lives can quickly become messy, with so many passcodes, password management can be a laborious exercise. Bright says: “What’s safe isn’t convenient and vice versa, but it’s a pain in the butt staying digitally secure.”
She recommends using password management apps and search engines that are less intrusive of your personal information, such as DuckDuckGo. “Get off the grid if you can.”
The boundary between private and public has been blurred by social media and sharing culture. Bright knows she’s done her job well when you don’t know anything about her client or something that has happened to them. 
It’s not just public figures that can end up ruining their reputation with an injudicious remark in public, or on social media. Nowadays we all have forums where we can end up regretting what we said. 
“A big shift we’re seeing with clients, whether they are 17 or 77, is that they want to be the best version of themselves.” As such she will work with them to make sure they are not vulnerable to reputational damage. 
“You can have 19 security people trailing after you but if you’re going to be an idiot in a nightclub, I can’t help you.”
Bright singles out inappropriate behaviour on a WhatsApp group. “Let’s shift the way we talk about other human beings,” she says.  
If you wouldn’t say it in public to someone’s face, then you probably shouldn’t say it on social media, or on a Teams chat. 
While Bright does find herself reacting to clients’ crises, prevention is the best security. A change in perception online can destroy years of hard work. “Why wait for it to go wrong?”
Having the best security team in the world at your disposal will mean nothing if you aren’t feeling good and coping well with life. 
“Emotional security is one thing you can do to transform your feeling of safety and your risk resilience, full stop,” says Bright. 
In her experience, an individual who has come from nothing can feel emotionally exposed through the process of making wealth. “We’ve got to work on a micro level of working with their emotional security drivers,” says Bright. “If a client is mentally destabilised, that’s where they have to start, we have to look at the causal link between emotional suits and risk resilience.”
If you are physically and cognitively fit then your risk resilience increases. If you are emotionally destabilised you’re more likely to have a break in or a hack, because you leave yourself exposed. 
Bright is a big fan of meditation apps like Calm and Headspace. When she’s flying she listens to binaural sounds and theta and delta brain waves to help get better rested. “Although I would never use them on public transport,” she says. 
“There’s no excuse now. Every night I listen to sleep hypnosis to get to sleep. I’m better, rested, better able to work out what’s going on and respond to things.”
Good mental health has to do with digital hygiene too. Are you mindlessly scrolling on your phone? “It turns your brain to mush,” says Bright. “I have a limit on my phone that will tell me when I’ve been scrolling for too long.” She recommends trying to get off-grid where possible. And while it’s not sensible to leave your phone at home entirely, an old-school phone can help you disconnect from the frazzle of the modern world.  
On the physical health side of things, can you walk to the bus? Being mobile and staying fit is crucial to our overall security. 
“We are in control of the physical, mental and cognitive response we have to risk and we need to invest in that as a number one priority. That will ultimately enable us to protect ourselves. At the base of it all we all have to be better humans.”