According to the law governing ANB, the agency is tasked with collecting, storing, analyzing, assessing, exchanging and guarding ANB is also responsible for counterintelligence protection of Parliament of Montenegro, Government of Montenegro, President of Montenegro, and other Government bodies and ministries, pertaining to activities significant to security of personnel, buildings and assets of aforementioned institutions.

OZNA was split from the Army in March 1946, and incorporated in Ministry of Interior, thus becoming civilian intelligence agency.

Within the Yugoslav army, KOS was formed as military counterintelligence agency, while civilian branch (now attached to Ministry of Interior) was renamed UDB.

In June 2014, the Associated Press (AP) published a statement made by an unnamed NATO source that between 25 and 50 Montenegrin intelligence officers had close links to Russia, a report that was denied by the Montenegrin officials; a Montenegrin political analyst commented that against the backdrop of talk about the country's Euro-Atlantic integration, Russian tycoons were unhindered in taking over state resources through a network of organized crime and corruption.

[2] In 2021 an official investigation was launched under the suspicion that the Agency has illegally followed opposition members and journalists only to later destroy all the documents related to the alleged events.