Asset (intelligence)

In intelligence, assets are persons within organizations or countries being spied upon who provide information for an outside spy.[1][2][3][4] They are sometimes referred to as agents, and in law enforcement parlance, as confidential informants, or "CIs" for short.

There are different categories of assets, including people who:

• Willingly work for a foreign government for ideological reasons such as being against their own government, but live in a country that doesn't allow political opposition. They may elect to work with a foreign power to change their own country because there are few other ways available.
• Work for monetary gain. Intelligence services often pay good wages to people in important positions that are willing to betray secrets.
• Have been blackmailed and are forced into their role.
• Do not even know they are being used (so called "useful idiots"). Assets can be loyal to their country, but may still provide a foreign agent with information through failures in information safety, such as using insecure computers or not following proper OPSEC procedures during day-to-day chatting.