Hot Boardroom Topic - Counterespionage

Security is becoming a board-level issue as the number of cyber-attacks and corporate espionage incidents are growing significantly each year...

Few people would dispute the mystique that surrounds the boardroom. This allure has been around for some time, but it was recently heightened by the popular TV series "The Apprentice" with business icon Donald Trump. Boards of directors deal with sensitive issues and handle privileged information, and board meetings themselves call to mind strategy discussion, stock discussions and major contracts.

Taking advantaged of privileged information is illegal. As you can imagine, access to privileged financial and stock information could easily be used for insider trading. The sensitive information and financial data must be controlled in order to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements.

What you may not think of are the discussions around information security, which has become a board-level issue. Cyber-attacks and corporate espionage are growing significantly year-over-year. In a training program developed by Spy-Ops, the company notes that corporate espionage worldwide is now more than a trillion-dollar problem annually and growing. Data breaches, theft of intellectual property, insider trading and other criminal acts now demand the attention of the board of directors.

"Enterprise risk management discussions and strategies have moved into the executive suites and boardrooms. This is due primarily to the significant implications associated with security breaches," said Paula Cordaro of Spy-Ops. (more)

S(he) M(aybe) E(arliest) R(ussian) S(py) H(ero) - B. Badenov

Russia’s oldest counter-intelligence officer is 100 years young. And although she's long retired, Maria Lyovina is still barred from revealing sensitive details about her work in the past.

She may not look like your archetypal secret agent but Maria Lyovina was catching spies long before the world had ever heard of James Bond.

A great grandmother three times over, her Ulanovsk flat is filled with family photographs. One is a striking image of the young woman German agents came to fear.

Maria was working as a secretary in a Leningrad factory when the Soviet Union entered the Second World War.

She was recruited by Army officers looking for an experienced typist.

She joined SMERSH, a counter intelligence group dedicated to catching traitors and undercover Germans. Its name literally meant ‘death to spies’. (more) (video)

"Blank Reg! Is that you?"

UK - Yobs wrecked CCTV cameras outside a Preston community centre just 48 hours after they were installed. But pictures of the vandals have been captured on the cameras they tried to destroy.

The community of Tanterton won government funding to put up four cameras at a notorious troublespot near the row of shops and community centre in Village Green Lane. (more) (video)

Wristwatch SpyCam

from the manufacturer's press release...
This Watch Spy Camera and Receiver is the ultimate covert operations kit, the camera in the watch is so small it's practically undetectable and looks absolutely normal.

Smart mounting of the camera results in the image being correctly orientated when the watch is upside down, for example when naturally resting your arm on a table. With stylish brushed aluminum and black a face no one will ever suspect they're being watch by such a well dressed person. The receiver unit comes with a 2.5 inch LCD and the capability of monitoring 4 wireless cameras at a time, playing music and even MPEG 4 movies if the mood takes you. The is quite simply the most covert spy camera we have seen yet and is now available direct to you at Wholesale-Star's excellent wholesale prices. Easily sell this to your eBay customers for great profits and take advantage of Wholesale-Star's drop shipping service. (more)
Yes, the watch keeps time.
Yes, the watch transmits audio, too.

Price Drop!!! GSM Bugs now on sale - $35.00

Alert - The hottest new bugging devices are now among the least expensive. GSM SIM bugs are like cell phones, but without the keypad. Eavesdroppers call and listen from anywhere in the world.

At one time these devices sold for $250.-$500. The price has plummeted to $35.-$55. Why? The same reason their sister product (the cell phone) is often a give-away item... Economy of scale; thus proving consumer demand is fueling mass production.

Corporate Concern...
At these prices, "salting" offices with bugs becomes practical. Imagine... Buy in bulk and get custom silk screening - "Air Quality Monitor - Do Not Disturb." Even if accidentally seen, it might be accepted - "Every office has one of these."

Corporate Solution...
Periodic Eavesdropping Detection Audits are now an integral part of corporate security. Not having an eavesdropping detection program is negligence.

from a seller's web site...
"The GSM SIM Bugs are advanced audio surveillance devices. The SIM spy ear comes with compact design and embedded microphone system. This audio surveillance listening system no need software and no configuration required. Very easy to use. The only one thing you need to do is insert a pre-paid GSM SIM card into SIM card slot of the spy sim bug. Then you could hide it in an inconspicuous location and starts excellent listening surveillance." (more)
Update: The seller has stopped selling this; claiming, "Because they are incompetent." This is likely as early models did not work well, hence the big price drop. Newer models seem to be selling very well, however.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Trinidad & Tobago - Sweeping legislative changes, including a proposal to regulate the practice of wiretapping in the entire region, are among a series of recommendations agreed to by Caricom Heads of States, Bharrat Jagdeo, the Guyanese president, revealed yesterday.

Speaking to reporters outside of the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Trinidad where a special security meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government was concluded. Jagdeo disclosed that he had personal knowledge that wiretapping is done throughout the region and revealed that it was agreed by heads of government that the practice should be regulated by legislation.

“People wiretap now,” he said, “but they can’t use it for evidence because it’s done illegally.” (more)

Bet you never heard of CARICOM.
Guess how many countries we are talking about here...
Full Members
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Dominica
Grenada
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Montserrat
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Associate Members
Anguilla
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Turks and Caicos Islands
Observers
Aruba
Colombia
Dominican Republic
Mexico
Netherlands Antilles
Puerto Rico (U.S.)
Venezuela

That's a lot of wiretappers who will soon be able to present their evidence in court!
It may also change some old saws...
"Sunny places attract shady characters."
may now become...
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Spy Buster Locates Sophisticated Wireless Eavesdropping Devices

According to the Freedonia Group, a market research group in Cleveland, Ohio, companies spend over $95 billion annually on corporate security.


One of the fastest growing areas for this spending is corporate espionage prevention.

Factors in this growth include everything from globalization to decreased employee loyalty and the fact that the most valuable asset of a corporation these days is information, which can be easier to steal than a piece of machinery.

So what’s a worried executive or security professional to do?
Increasingly, companies and government agencies are turning to firms that specialize in detecting and removing eavesdropping and other surveillance devices... (more)

Track My Treads - The TPMS Privacy Blowout

via hexview.com
New technologies always come with privacy issues.
Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) is one of those technologies.

What is TPMS?
TPMS lets on-board vehicle computers measure air pressure in the tires.

How does TPMS work?
In a typical TPMS, each wheel of the vehicle contains a device (TPMS sensor) - usually attached to the inflation valve - that measures air pressure and, optionally, temperature, vehicle state (moving or not), and the health of the sensor's battery. Each sensor transmits this information (either periodically or upon request) to the on-board computer in the vehicle. To differentiate between its own wheels and wheels of the vehicle in the next lane, each TPMS sensor contains a unique id.

TPMS transmits data that uniquely identifies your car!
Here is where privacy problems become obvious: Each wheel of the vehicle transmits a unique ID, easily readable using off-the-shelf receiver. Although the transmitter’s power is very low, the signal is still readable from a fair distance using a good directional antenna.

Why is this a problem?
If you live in the United States, chances are, you have heard about the “traffic-improving” ideas where transportation authorities looked for the possibility to track all vehicles in nearly real time in order to issue speeding tickets or impose mileage-adjusted taxes... Guess what? With minor limitations, TPMS can be used for the very purpose of tracking your vehicle in real time with no substantial investments! TPMS can also be used to measure the speed of your vehicle... (remember) car manufacturers know serial numbers of every part in your vehicle, including unique IDs of TPMS sensors.
("Your ticket is in the mail.")

Now, no article is complete unless it mentions terrorists...
It is now super easy to blow up someone's car. There's no need to fix the explosive to the vehicle. No more wires and buttons. No human factor. A high-school kid with passion for electronics can assemble a device that will trigger the detonator when the right vehicle passes by. (more)

"See anything, dude?" (crash!!!) "April Fool"

17-year-old accused of trying to spy
WI - Michael Q. Ruby (17) of Omro, Wisconsin was with two others who were trying to see into a Larrabee Street apartment when Ruby pushed one of the others through the window, damaging the screen. Ruby told police he and his friends went to the Larrabee Street residence to see if they could find an acquaintance there with underage girls... (more)

Offer of a Murder Surfaces at Wiretap Trial

A hedge fund manager and art collector from New York testified under immunity Tuesday that Anthony Pellicano, the Hollywood private detective accused of wiretapping and racketeering, had once offered to have a movie producer killed for him. (more)

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Wiretap Debate in Congress

via wired.com
If you've been having trouble tracking what the various surveillance bills are all about, don't blame yourself -- there's been plenty of misinformation going around. Here's Wired.com's definitive guide to the congressional surveillance debate.

Why is Congress expanding the government's spying authority?
After 9/11, or possibly before, President Bush instructed the nation's spies to begin a secret spying program that reportedly includes data-mining records of U.S. residents' phones, travels and purchases in order to find targets to wiretap. The administration says its warrantless eavesdropping only listened in on international phone calls and e-mails... (more)

Congressman Ordered to Pay in Wiretap Case

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) to pay nearly $1.2 million to House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), settling a legal dispute over McDermott's actions in leaking the contents of an intercepted 1996 conference call involving Boehner and other Republican leaders.

Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,... had already levied a $60,000 civil fine against McDermott in 2004 for violating federal wiretapping statutes by receiving the intercepted audiotape of the conference call and releasing its contents to several members of the media....

Boehner was speaking on a cellphone in Florida, where his conversation was illegally recorded by a couple who heard it on a radio scanner. (more)

The Case of the Telepathic Ray Gun, or...

..."Does that ringing in my ears bother you?"
via Discovery.com
I know some of you may not want to believe this, but the U.S. government may well already have the ability to beam secret commands to you through the fillings in your teeth. Well, not exactly. But close. A recently declassified 1998 U.S. Army report, “Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons,” describes government plans for a microwave weapon that would transmit voice communication that seems to emanate from within a human target’s own brain. (It was obtained and posted on the Web by Freedom From Covert Harassment & Surveillance, a Cincinnati-based organization that advocates on behalf of people who believe they are being stalked and subjected to “electromagnetic harassment.”)

To quote the report:
Because the frequency of the sound heard is dependent upon the pulse characteristics of the RF energy, it seems possible that this technology could be developed to the point where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except that it could only be heard within a person’s head.

This is possible because of something called the Microwave Auditory Effect, which was first discovered during World War II, when people working in the vicinity of radar transponders complained of hearing strange clicking noises that other people nearby didn’t notice. The effect is caused by thermal expansion of the region around the cochlea. In the 1960s, neuroscientist Allan H. Frey, who was the first to publish research on the effect, was able to induce it in human subjects with pulsed microwaves from a transmitter 100 meters away.

It’s unclear just how far the government’s microwave auditory research and development efforts have progressed since 1993, when the report was written... (more)

Corporate Espionage Arrest - AMX Corp. V.P.

Short version: AMX Corporation's Vice President, David Goldenberg, was "arrested for allegedly participating in corporate espionage practices against a competing manufacturer's representative firm."

The following is from the Bergen County (NJ) Prosecutor's press release...
NJ - Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli announced the arrest of David A. Goldenberg, D.O.B. 05/18/1962, of 432 Golf Dr., Oceanside NY. Goldenberg was arrested on March 28, 2008, on charges of Unlawful Access of a Computer System / Network (2C:20-25b); Unlawful Access of Computer Data / Theft of Data (2C:20-25c); and Conducting an Illegal Wiretap (2A:156A-27)...

The arrest stemmed from an investigation concerning the following: The Paramus Police Department received a complaint from a Paramus based corporation known as Sapphire Marketing, who specializes in high-end audio/visual systems. Representatives of Sapphire reported that they were being suspiciously and consistently underbid for contracts by a competitor for whom David Goldenberg works. They expressed suspicion of corporate espionage. Based on anomalies that the complainant noticed within their computer network and more specifically their electronic mail (e-mail) system, they suspected that the company’s e-mail system had been compromised and that e-mail was being intercepted. The Paramus Police Department (a member of the Computer Crimes Task Force) and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Unit initiated an investigation.

The investigation revealed that Mr. Goldenberg had engineered the passwords protecting several of the complainant’s e-mail accounts. For a period of time, Mr. Goldenberg was intercepting and reading e-mails that related to potential contracts. Mr. Goldenberg then established a free e-mail account that he had control over, and created an automatic forward of the victim’s e-mail so that they would be sent to him directly. This afforded Mr. Goldenberg advanced knowledge of Sapphire’s customers and bid prices, thus further affording him an opportunity to underbid Sapphire. Sapphire Marketing estimates the loss in revenue from Mr. Goldenberg’s actions to exceed one-million dollars. Mr. Goldenberg was arrested without incident on this date. (more) (more - scroll down)

Goldenberg was hired by AMX June 11, 2007...
“David has a proven track record of satisfying the needs of his customers while boosting sales and profitability. He is also an aggressive marketer focused on value creation,” said Rashid Skaf, AMX president and CEO. “David is a dynamic leader who has proven that he can successfully manage and motivate a diverse team of individuals. I am confident that he will fit well into the AMX culture and accomplish great things with our company.” (more)

The Original Hollywood Wiretapper

By Will Vaus
The trial of private detective Anthony Pellicano, who is charged with 110 counts of racketeering, wiretapping, conspiracy and other federal charges, has been capturing headlines for quite some time. No wonder. Its connections to the mob, eavesdropping on Hollywood conversations and the revolving door of movie industry personalities make for a good read. However, for me and my family, it is déjà vu.

Why? Because my father, "Big Jim" Vaus, was the original Hollywood wiretapper. He launched the practice of listening in on the stars in the 1940s and gained the same sort of notoriety then that surrounds Pellicano now. He was written up in the L.A. papers, and his story has been featured in Time, Life, Reader's Digest and in a 1955 movie, "Wiretapper." (more)

Will Vaus, author of My Father Was a Gangster: The Jim Vaus Story

Recordings of Jim Vaus talking about his life.
More stories about Jim Vaus...
The Hollywood Vice Queen (1948)
Wiretapping in Hollywood (1955)
Why Jim Vaus Quit Wiretapping (1946)