Silicon Valley Steps Up Screening on Chinese Employees to Counter Espionage

Leading U.S. technology companies reportedly have increased security screening of employees and job applicants, which experts say is necessary to counter the cyber espionage threat from China.

While the enhanced screening is being applied to employees and applicants of all races, those with family or other ties to China are thought to be particularly vulnerable to pressure from the Beijing government.

But at least one Chinese computer science graduate student at a U.S. university is hoping to make his ties to China an asset. Zheng, who does not want to reveal his first name for fear of retaliation from the Chinese government, says he recently changed his focus to cybersecurity in hopes of improving his job prospects in the United States. more

6 Ways Remote Workers Can Stop Bosses Spying on Them

1. Separate Personal Devices From Company Ones
2. Mouse Jigglers
3. Avoid Email and Social Account Monitoring
4. VPNs
5. Secure Browsers
6. Know Your Rights
Details here.

How Companies are Using AI to Spy on Slack

Several employers are now using an AI-powered app to analyze and monitor messages across Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other platforms.

What spy is this?

It’s called Aware, an Ohio-based startup that launched in 2017, per CNBC, and its clients include Nestle, Walmart, Delta Air Lines, and Starbucks.

It uses AI, trained on previous employee interactions, to analyze messages and determine:

• How various groups of employees feel about the company or decisions it makes.
• If bullying or discrimination is happening.
• If employees are sharing confidential info.
• If employees are sending inappropriate texts, photos, or videos.
• How often teams communicate with one another.

In theory, this makes it easier for employers to stay on top of employee sentiment and potential risks in an increasingly online world. more

Employee Exposed Himself to Espionage by Seeking Sex Parlours

A Canada Border Service Agency employee opened himself up to the threat of exploitation by "hostile intelligence services" after visiting massage parlours in China, Japan and Canada, documents obtained by CBC News reveal.

The case is just one of more than 500 allegations the CBSA deemed "founded" last year and released as part of an access to information request.

According to the redacted file, the employee — who is not named in the document — allegedly engaged in illegal activities "by purchasing sexual services from massage parlours in Japan, China and Canada." more

Crocs Sues Rival Joybees Over Stolen Trade Secrets...

...by former manager...

Footwear makers Crocs and rival Joybees have filed competing claims against each other in a U.S. court, as the companies clash over corporate trade secrets, intellectual property and competition in the foam clog market.

The new complaint accuses McCarvel, who was a midlevel manager at Crocs, of stealing several thousand documents containing Crocs’s highly confidential and proprietary business information, as well as the contents of an entire Crocs email account...

The complaint accuses McCarvel of using the stolen documents to build Crocs' rival shoe company, Joybees. more

Blackmail with Email, or The Employer's Lawyer Destroyer

Last month, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, one of the nation’s largest law firms, was rocked by the announcement that two top partners were starting their own boutique practice and taking as many as 140 colleagues with them.

The shock inside Lewis Brisbois’ downtown Los Angeles headquarters soon gave way to anger... over the weekend, Lewis Brisbois struck back.

In an extraordinary move, its management team directed the release of scores of emails in which Barber and Ranen used vile terms for women, Black people, Armenians, Persians, and gay men and traded in offensive stereotypes of Jews and Asians. In one fell swoop, the venerable firm managed to torpedo its new rival, destroy the defecting partners’ careers and send the legal establishment reeling. more

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“Say it with flowers,

Say it with mink,

But never, ever say it with ink."

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Business Espionage: The Employee Competitor… and what to do about it

NLRB vs. Employer Surveillance of Employees

A significant concern for managers of remote workers is the ability to engage, manage and monitor performance and productivity – and some healthcare employers have turned to technologies like tracking employee keystrokes, capturing screenshots, and on-camera requirements for employees during work hours.

This has caught the attention of the National Labor Relations Board’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who recently issued a memorandum seeking to broaden of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) and limit the electronic surveillance of employees...

Under well-established law, an employer can be found to violate Section 8(a)(1) of the Act if it implements new monitoring technologies in response to union and other protected activity, uses existing technologies to discover such protected activity, including by reviewing security-camera footage or employees’ social-media accounts; or creates the impression that it is doing such things. more

Workers Foil Bosses’ Surveillance Attempts

Companies tracking employees’ productivity run up against inventive workarounds.

Lisa Crawford... is wary of her computer falling asleep when she gets up to throw in a load of laundry...Her solution? Sloth TV, a live-cam of a Costa Rican wildlife rescue ranch...Ms. Crawford pulls up the stream on a second monitor. Her computer stays awake...

Mr. Dewan had learned that his computer wouldn’t go to sleep or mark him as “idle” during a presentation...

Mr. Abbas wrapped the cord of his computer mouse around a rotating desk fan. Its motion kept the mouse moving and prevented his computer from shutting down. “I logged on, went to the gym,” he says.

For workers who aren’t as handy, mouse jigglers are for sale on Amazon. “Push the button when you’re getting up from your desk and the cursor travels randomly around the screen—for hours, if needed!” says one review. more

Wiretap Suit: Law firm's Managing Partner had a 'Fixation' with Employee Surveillance

The managing partner of a Chicago law firm apparently monitored his employees with video cameras and a telephone system that allowed recording of phone calls, according to a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Chicago.

The April 7 suit claims that the law firm’s managing partner, Edward “Eddie” Vrdolyak Jr., had a “fixation with audio and video surveillance.”

The suit cites “information and belief” that the firm’s offices in Chicago and Nashville, Tennessee, were equipped with a network of audio and surveillance cameras that Vrodyak monitored from several video screens in his office. more

Corporate Security News: Employees Offered $$$ for Planting Ransomware

In August, KrebsOnSecurity warned that scammers were contacting people and asking them to unleash ransomware inside their employer's network, in exchange for a percentage of any ransom amount paid by the victim company. This week, authorities in Nigeria arrested a suspect in connection with the scheme -- a young man who said he was trying to save up money to help fund a new social network. more

Florida Surveillance Techs Charged With Video Voyeurism

Palm Beach, FL
Police have arrested video surveillance technician Jeremy Dale Lewis for video voyeurism after a nearly year-long investigation... 

A second suspect, Michael Reilly, is also facing a charge of video voyeurism. Police said Reilly, who also worked for Ask the Advisors, watched more than 600 live and archived videos over a five-day period in July 2020 of a woman undressing in her dressing room, and of a couple having sex...

This incident follows a high-profile case that saw an ADT technician receive a 52-month jail sentence for doing essentially the same thing. more

Facebook Reportedly Fired 52 Employees Caught Spying on Users

Facebook fired 52 employees for abusing their access to the social network’s user data — including creepy men who obtained location data on women they were romantically interested in, according to a new report. 

Using their access to troves of user data through Facebook’s internal systems, male engineers were able to view women’s locations, private messages, deleted photos and more, according to a bombshell report in the Telegraph...

While 52 employees were fired for such transgressions in 2014 and 2015, Facebook’s then-chief security officer Alex Stamos reportedly warned that hundreds of others may have slipped by unnoticed. more

Another TSCM Fail - Dentist Sweeps Office - In Situ Spycam Missed

Two weeks ago a school district conducted their own "in-house" TSCM sweep for spycams after an employee was charged with 30 child pornography and voyeurism charges. Big fail. Multiple reasons.

This week...

An Illinois dental practice has been sued by 11 employees after an hygienist allegedly hid two cameras in the work bathroom, new court papers show.

One camera was discovered Oct. 22 in a unisex employees’ bathroom of the national dental chain Aspen Dental in Crestwood, and it was turned over to the police department, according to the lawsuits filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Thursday.

That same day, dental hygienist Armani Alexander, 25, “admitted to placing the camera” in the bathroom and was arrested, the court papers say.

The office assured the workers that they swept the premises and didn’t find any more cameras.

Yet Oct. 26, a second camera was discovered in the same bathroom, court documents allege...

Aspen admitted that a background check for Alexander — who had only been with the company for two months — “was flagged for criminal activity,” the court papers say...

The workers — who are each suing for at least $50,000 — have brought claims of negligent hiring and supervision against the practice. more

No surprise there. This DIY amateur hour bug sweep was an exercise in negligence. 

Consider these points...

• The police were given the first camera and had a confession the same day. "Case closed."
• We don't know if the police conducted a follow-up inspection for additional cameras. If they didn't, they failed. If they did, they failed to find the second camera.
  
• The practice knowingly hired a hygienist with known criminal activity ...and didn't investigate further.
  
• No mention of an independent Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) specialist being called in to investigate. Big fail.
  
• "The office assured the workers that they swept the premises and didn’t find any more cameras." (Visions of Steve Martin.) ..."Yet Oct. 26, a second camera was discovered in the same bathroom."

 Why is all this important?

Emotional pain and embarrassment aside... not conducting a professional emergency sweep will have expensive consequences, and may put this dentist out of business.

• 11 employees suing for $50,000.00 each = $550,000.00
• Cost of recruiting, hiring and training new staff = $????.00
• Loss of business due to the bad publicity = $????.00+
• Total cost of their DIY "sweep" (rough guess) "a lot!"
  
• Cost of a professional TSCM sweep for an average dental office suite ≈ only $4,500 - $6,000.

Want to proactively check for spycams yourself? Learn how to do it first.
If you have an active situation, find a competent TSCM professional.

This Week in (the other type of) Corporate Espionage

NLRB Accuses Google of Spying On and Retaliating Against Employees
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) lodged a formal complaint against Google, LLC and Alphabet, Inc. (collectively Google) on Wednesday, contending that the company interfered with workers’ rights to organize and retaliated against certain employees for attempting to unify. According to an article by Ars Technica, and a redacted filing consolidating the cases, the NLRB stepped in after several employees made complaints about their former employer’s restrictive and punitive actions. more  

Private spies reportedly infiltrated an Amazon strike... A union is taking legal action.
Amazon could face a court battle with a Spanish workers' union over a report that said private investigators were hired to infiltrate and secretly surveil a strike outside one of its warehouses. According to a 51-page document obtained by the Spanish news site El Diario, private detectives spied on an Amazon workers' strike at a warehouse near Barcelona, Spain... more

Employers Are Spying on Remote Workers in Their Homes
As the Covid-19 pandemic has forced more people to work from home, employers have begun using digital surveillance technology to increase control and maintain productivity. more

Credit Suisse Spy Agency Was More Global, Inept Than Previously Reported
The most amazing thing about Credit Suisse’s CEO-sinking spy scandal isn’t that the bank’s internal KGB existed at all, but how hilariously, spectacularly shitty it was at the job. The most important thing, after all, about a covert operation is not the information it uncovers, but that it remain covert, undetected by those under its watch. Not only were CS’s Keystone Kops unable to achieve this most basic secrecy over and over and over again, they weren’t able to concoct an effective cover-up of their rare successful operations from the world’s most credulous law firm. more

NJ Whistleblower Allies File Lawsuit Against Carpenters' Union Over Spying
Five former employees of Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters have sued the union for allegedly spying on and then firing them over their support of a whistleblower who sparked a federal corruption investigation of the union. more

Oil & Gas Industry Corporate Espionage, or Those Fracking Spies

According to the FBI, corporate espionage in the global oil and gas industry mostly involves stealing intellectual property, including a company's trade secrets, research, and proprietary information...

The main culprits are domestic and/or foreign commercial rivals, start-up companies, foreign Intelligence officers (spies), disgruntled employees (insider threat), or organized criminals.

In the case of Texas fracking companies, employees of drilling firms were targeted when they traveled outside the United States with the contents of their company laptops stolen.

Alternatively, individuals were actively placed inside target companies, or disgruntled employees would simply go rogue and begin collecting and selling trade secrets, mainly as an act of defiance to strike back at their employers. more

Employer Best Practices For Monitoring Remote Devices

It is generally known that individuals have reduced privacy rights for work-related activity than they have in their personal lives, and that these reduced privacy rights extend to devices owned or provided by their company.

As just one example, consider the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA, which permits employers to: 

(1) monitor employees' oral and electronic communications to the extent that they relate to a legitimate business purpose;
(2) monitor any communications for which the employee has provided consent; and
(3) access emails that are stored by the employer.

All of these exceptions decrease an individual's privacy rights and reasonable expectation of privacy in work-related matters. However, is "exceptions" the correct word? Exceptions to what? Does this reference a specific privacy law or privacy rights in general? 

(The short version.) Ultimately then, the best practice for employees is to keep work and personal devices and communications entirely separate even in COVID-19 times. more

Security Management: Which Type of Employee Do You Inspire

Engineer admits he wiped 456 Cisco WebEx VMs after leaving the biz, derailed 16,000 Teams accounts.  

Sudhish Kasaba Ramesh, who worked at Cisco from July 2016 to April 2018, admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he had deliberately connected to Cisco's AWS-hosted systems without authorization in September 2018 – five months after leaving the manufacturer. 

He then proceeded to delete virtual machines powering Cisco's WebEx video-conferencing service... According to prosecutors, Ramesh's actions resulted in the shutdown of more than 16,000 WebEx Teams accounts for up to two weeks, which cost Cisco roughly $1.4m in employee time for remediation and over $1m in customer refunds. more

OR...

Earlier this week, the FBI arrested a 27-year-old Russian citizen for attempting to carry out a ransomware attack against a US company. It turns out that company was Tesla.

According to a complaint shared by the Department of Justice, in July, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov traveled to the US and contacted a Russian speaking, non-US citizen who was working at the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. 

After meeting with that individual, Kriuchkov allegedly proposed a deal. He would pay the employee $1 million to deliver malware to computer systems at the Gigafactory...

The employee immediately informed Tesla, and the company contacted the FBI, which launched a sting operation. Agents arrested Kriuchkov in Los Angeles as he was attempting to leave the US. more

Loyal employees can be worth more than you think. Treat them fairly. Make them feel a part of the security effort, and you will have a security army working for you. ~Kevin

Staffing Firm Alleges Corporate Espionage by Former Employees

NY - Two Southern Tier staffing agencies are locked in a bitter dispute alleging corporate espionage, payroll sabotage, the breaching of non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, and the hijacking of a company Facebook page.

In a 54-page filing with the Federal District Court in Northern District earlier this month, Adecco accuses the upstart Staffworks of raiding its Corning, Elmira, Utica and Syracuse staff to steal proprietary account information and using it to steal long-established business...

• 
  Former employees commandeered a Adecco Corning office Facebook page for their own use, renaming it and taking control of posts.
• A former Adecco employee broke into locked office filing cabinets, drilling through locks, "to remove colleague personnel files and other Adecco documents containing confidential information." The employee contends she was only trying to obtain personal items from the locked cabinet.
• Proprietary pricing information and profit margin details was emailed from internal email accounts to personnel accounts before Adecco cut off access.
• Those named in the suit refused to return company laptops and mobile devices with critical and confidential client and company details.
• In their last weeks of employment , three defendants sabotaged client relationships by failing to enter information into a payroll system, later using the foul-up as evidence that Adecco was "going downhill," in an attempt to land new clients. more

Note to Adecco: Time for a thorough TSCM inspection. (search for eavesdropping devices)

Reports: Cybercrimes Surge 400%, Teleworkers Need to Tighten Security

...in another new analysis, IBM warns that teleworkers are especially vulnerable to attack.

“There is a level of apathy and a lack of awareness when it comes to securing the home office environment....they’re seeing double the failure rates on their security tests than they saw pre-COVID,” warns Mathew Newfield, Chief Information Security Officer at Unisys...

“This unprecedented remote working explosion amounts to a dramatic game changer for corporate security officers and cyber attackers,” says Patrick Barry, Chief Information Officer at Rebyc Security.”

“Corporate cyber security strategies, policies, penetration testing procedures, and technologies need to be reconsidered and reevaluated and, in many cases, revamped.” more

Amsterdam School Bugging Incident

The director of the Cornelius Haga Lyceum in Amsterdam planted eavesdropping equipment in the office assigned to the Education Inspectorate for its investigation into the school...

This is not Soner Atasoy.

During the investigation, the school made an office available to the inspectors, where they had sensitive conversations with each other, with pupils, and with staff. These conversations were recorded and eavesdropped on multiple times...

NRC's sources said that school director Soner Atasoy wanted to keep an eye on the Inspectorate's investigation and on what employees of the school said about him and the school...

The Education Inspectorate told NRC that there was a "suspicion" that the room given to inspectors to use was being tapped. After that, the inspectors slightly adjusted their working methods at the school, switching rooms "with some regularity" and conducting confidential conversation by phone or outside.

The office in question was never searched for eavesdropping equipment because there was "insufficient cause" for it and it would have led to "unnecessary unrest", the Inspectorate said. more