All About MICE: The 4 Motivations of Spies and Saboteurs

Counterintelligence and law enforcement agencies have studied for decades how to recruit and handle insiders to turn them into agents.

While some may say that recruitment is more of an art than a science, the CIA used its experience to categorize the four common motivations that would make someone a manageable agent: money, ideology, coercion or compromise, and ego. It's easy to remember these motivations by using the pneumonic device MICE.

These motives also apply to private sector insider threats recruited by a competitor, state-sponsored group, or other entity wishing to harm the target company.

Most recruits have more than one motivation for working as an insider. For example, Matthew Lange was a disgruntled former employee at aircraft manufacturer RAPCO who offered to sell the company’s trade manufacturing secrets to third parties. His motives were likely money and ego.

Another example was FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen, who operated as a spy for the Russian KGB for decades. He was paid roughly $1.4 million in cash and diamonds in exchange for information that exposed U.S. assets. Prior to approaching Soviet intelligence, Hanssen felt his contributions and attempts to improve the Bureau were overlooked. Analysts have speculated that along with ego and money, Hanssen also may have been motivated by ideology.  

Learn more about insider threats and their motivations by watching the video below.