Spy Quote of the Week

via The Hustle...

"I smashed my old phone with an axe and put it down the drain at my mother-in-laws's house."

Not a movie scene, but: the directions former Rippling employee-turned-corporate spy Keith O’Brien said he received from a Deel attorney (and carried out) to destroy evidence in an ongoing legal battle between the two HR tech companies, according to a recent court filing via TechCrunch.

Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz is accused of hiring O’Brien to collect intel on competitor Rippling — product road maps, customer accounts, sales leads, etc. — in a four-month-long scheme, according to the lawsuit. O’Brien’s compensation? Allegedly just $6k a month. Not exactly hush money, it seems.

Spybusters: Quote of the Week

“Our enemies are ancient cultures fighting for their survival, not just now but for the next thousand years.”

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir commenting on Chinese spying on U.S. tech companies—“a huge problem.”

Business Espionage: Quote of the Week

“...cyber threat actors target successful firms, possibly for industrial espionage,” AEI researchers said in a study released this month. “Large cash holdings increase the likelihood...” more

Spy Quote of the Week

"Peacetime espionage is best defined as not particularly illegal, and the lack of global governance is likely an intentional choice." ~Danielle Han, from the article: Aspymmetrical Powers: Economic and Cyber Espionage

Quote of the Week

 “Realizing that espionage is not science fiction, but a tangible and real risk, is the first step to protect ourselves against it,” 

- Nicolas Fierens Gevaert, a spokesperson for the Belgian foreign affairs ministry. more

Spy Quote of the Week

“There’s no such thing as technology that’s too old for operations.” 

~ Toni Hiley, Director, CIA Museum 

 

One good reason why a corporate TSCM program is so important. 

Spy Quote of the Week

"I'm sorry if this is news to you, but not all Australians are the good guys."

Rachel Noble, the head of Australia's top foreign cyber-intelligence agency says spying on some Australians is essential because authorities are in a "near-impossible game" to defeat terrorism and espionage. more

True in any country...

A senior French military officer stationed at a NATO base has been indicted and detained on suspicion of spying for Russia, local media and legal sources said on Sunday. more

Security Scrapbook Flashback: September 1, 1998

Security Scrapbook Extra - Internet Privacy and Security
Tue, 01 Sep 1998

Review from the September 1998 issue of PC World magazine... 

Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret
by Jeffrey Rothfeder

Medical histories, bank balances, even unlisted phone numbers--the details of your life are brokered online every day. "Privacy is like clean air," says Kevin Murray, who runs Murray Associates, a New Jersey–based firm that sweeps clients' offices for bugs and other surveillance equipment. "At one time there was plenty of it. Now it's almost gone."

Corporate Espionage Quote of the Week

"The threat model in corporate espionage is absolutely one of theft of property. It’s a lot easier to steal somebody’s laptop than to hack it." ~ toxik

Quote of the Week

"Organizations' ham-fisted operational changes due to the novel Coronavirus will create a field day for practitioners of espionage--industrial and otherwise."
(Sent to me by a knowledgeable source.)

2020 Quote of the Year - First Contender

“The biggest thing (coming in 2020) is connected everything,” said Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst for the research firm Creative Strategies. “Anything in the home — we’ll have more cameras, more mics, more sensors.” *
 ----
via The New York Times...
The 2010s made one thing clear: Tech is everywhere in life... In 2020 and the coming decade, these trends are likely to gather momentum. They will also be on display next week at CES, an enormous consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas that typically serves as a window into the year’s hottest tech developments. more

* Thus, a need for more TSCM; the yin to espionage yang.

Toga! Toga! Toga! ...SCIF Fight!

SCIF fight shows lawmakers can be their own biggest cybersecurity vulnerability.

About two dozen House Republicans enter a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) where a closed session before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees took place.

A group of House Republicans could have created a field day for Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies when they stormed into a secure Capitol Hill room where their colleagues were taking impeachment testimony yesterday with their cellphones in tow. more

"You're all worthless and weak!" ~Doug Neidermeyer

Business Espionage - Thought of the Day - Loose Lips

Written by Chris Erickson is a combat veteran and former Green Beret, with extensive experience deployed to various locations across the world.  

One of the most shocking things for me entering the corporate world after serving on several Special Forces teams was how lax many organizations in highly competitive industries were with information about their operations.

It doesn’t take industrial espionage to sabotage a company, just poor operation security. In World War II, the posters warned us that “Loose Lips Sink Ships” and that’s just as true today as it was then.

Operational Security, or OPSEC as we called it in the military, should be a part of your organizational culture, from the bottom to the top. Simple things such as reminding people not to discuss projects or clients in the elevator or at lunch reduce the amount of exposure and risk of compromise for both yourself and your stakeholders.

It’s far less likely that nefarious agents or bad actors are going to give up sensitive information than the possibility you’ll be compromised by the careless and/or reckless behavior of your employees. more

Julian Claxton Speaks Out on the Spy Camera Pandemic

Click to enlarge.

A spate of high-profile incidents have showcased just how easy it is for Airbnb hosts to spy on unsuspecting guests.

These cameras are cheap, easy to use and hard for guests to find, says Julian Claxton, managing director of counterespionage organisation, Jayde Consulting. “Depending on how well they’re hidden, it can be very difficult to detect them without professional help,” Mr Claxton told The New Daily.

“The devices are really easy to get. If you type in ‘hidden camera’ into eBay you will get thousands of hits. The new ones, they’re building them into charger packs, into the bases of lamps, clocks, radios – you name it and you can put a camera in it.”

Those hiding cameras in hotels are looking for more specific targets, Mr Claxton says.

“Often it’s not the hotel themselves, it’s a rogue worker who is more interested in a perversion or extortion,” he said.

“For instance, if you work for a major conglomerate and have a dalliance with a man or woman while you’re married, that video can then be used to extort that person.” more | Learn how to detect spy cameras yourself.

Quote of the Week

"It’s generally the government’s view that corporations are as responsible for their own information technology security as they are for their own physical security." — Dick Fadden, former national security adviser to Stephen Harper and past director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)

Downer of the Day – Paranoia Is Now a Best Practice

Bust out the tinfoil—the data security crisis is worse than you ever imagined...

he 2010s will be remembered as the first decade in which we, the people, paid for the pleasure of welcoming Big Brother into our lives.

When George Orwell depicted an inescapable surveillance state — telescreens in every room monitoring every move, recording every sound, and reporting it all to the authoritarian leader — in his classic novel 1984, he probably never imagined that in 2018, folks would pay $600 (plus a recurring monthly fee) for the privilege of carrying a telescreen in their pockets. more

Buy yours now.

Business Espionage: Quote of the Week

"We must recognize that we now live in an era of uneven, ruthless, state-sponsored global competition. Many executives do not understand the totality of the new forces they are forced to deal with." ~T. Casey Fleming  more 

Spycam Quote of the Week

~Christopher Falkenberg, president of security consulting firm Insite Risk Management and former U.S. Secret Service special agent discussing the ease of hotel room spycam bugging...

"Assuming someone has access to the room before and after the customer uses it, I think it’s quite easy because there are many devices available to the public that can be inserted into a room and retrieved after. It’s not high-speed stuff, and it’s not hard to get." more

How to encrypt your entire life in less than an hour

Quincy Larson has written an excellent article on how to protect your digital privacy. Worth reading. Worth doing. ~Kevin

“Only the paranoid survive.” — Andy Grove

And Grove isn’t the only powerful person urging caution. Even the director of the FBI — the same official who recently paid hackers a million dollars to unlock a shooter’s iPhone — is encouraging everyone to cover their webcams.

But you obey the law. What do you have to worry about? As the motto of the United Kingdom’s surveillance program reminds us, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.”

Well, law-abiding citizens do have reason to fear. They do have reasons to secure their devices, their files, and their communications with loved ones.

“If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” — Cardinal Richelieu in 1641

In this article, I will show you how you can protect yourself by leveraging state-of-the-art encryption. In a single sitting, you can make great strides toward securing your privacy. more

Quote of the Week – Bob Woodward on J. Edgar Hoover

"FBI director J. Edgar Hoover didn’t object to Nixon’s wiretapping because it was illegal, he objected because wiretapping was his job!" — legendary journalist Bob Woodward, who spoke Thursday night to a packed house at the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall.