Sunday, March 29, 2009

Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

An electronic spy network that has infiltrated the computers of government offices, NGOs and activist groups in more than 100 countries has been surreptitiously stealing documents and eavesdropping on electronic correspondence, say a group of researchers at the University of Toronto.

More than 1,200 computers at embassies, foreign ministries, news media outlets and non-governmental organizations based primarily in South and Southeast Asia have been infiltrated by the network since at least the spring of 2007, according to the researchers' detailed 53-page report, as have computers in the offices of the Dalai Lama, the Asian Development Bank and the Associated Press in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong...

The computers were infected either after workers clicked on an e-mail attachment containing malware or clicked on a URL that took them to a rogue web site where the malware downloaded to their computer. The malware includes a feature for turning on the web camera and microphone on a computer in order to secretly record conversations and activity in a room. (
more)

The Information Warfare Monitor, a Canadian cyber-espionage watchdog, goes to pains not to point the finger of blame at the Chinese government for a massive China-based cyberspy ring it has uncovered. "While our analysis reveals that numerous politically sensitive and high-value computer systems were compromised in ways that circumstantially point to China as the culprit," it writes in a report issued March 29, "we do not know the exact motivation or the identity of the attacker(s), or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole."

Beijing has always officially denied undertaking such electronic espionage. But given that the IWM has identified at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, mostly in the foreign ministries or embassies of various Asian governments; that its investigation was triggered by a request from Beijing's adversary, exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, who was concerned the computers of his network had been hacked; and past accusations that Beijing has engaged in cyberspying, including against the U.S., the old suspicions will not only be reawakened but intensified.
(more) (Doh!)

Understanding the Economic Crisis - Simplified

The recession came to South Park this week. The show's metaphor for our real-world mortgage crisis was a "Margaritaville" machine, an over-priced, pointless gadget that makes the green-colored alcoholic beverages. Stan's dad Randy owned one, Stan tried to sell it so the newly-poor family would have more to eat than "sliced hot dogs and tomato slices," but no store or bank would take the gizmo in exchange for actual money. "Defaulting on your Margaritaville," was one weasel-businessman's phrase. (more with video)

Meanwhile, Spybusters' own research has turned up a hugh price reduction on Margaritaville machines. Hold on to your frozen assets!

"Nice day fura mow!"

NY - A reputed Colombo crime family member has been sentenced to 18 months in prison in a shakedown case that the FBI made in part by bugging a Long Island high school baseball field.

Another figure convicted in the case, Frank Leto, apparently discussed illicit business on the Glen Cove High School ballfield to avoid investigators. But according to trial testimony, FBI agents bugged it and recorded hours of conversation. (more) (trailer)

Monday, March 23, 2009

GSM Bugs Keep Getting Smaller

from the seller's web site...
The PLM-JNGSMTX08, a true technological jewel, is the smallest GSM transmitter implemented to date. The technology of listening to the most advanced GSM concentrated in an incredibly small size of only 43 x 34 x 17mm. Simply insert the SIM and call the number to listen to what happens in your absence.

Thanks to its reduced dimensions, the PLM-JNGSMTX08 can be hidden for almost everything in the home, office and car and is even small enough to be hidden in a purse or a briefcase.

The PLM-JNGSMTX08 offers the best quality audio possible thanks to a new circuit for filtering and a new Digital Sound Processor.

A charging of internal battery operation makes the PLM-JNGSMTX08 for up to 6 days standby or 6 to 8 hours of asocoto high-quality audio. For long-term operations, the device can be connected to 220V power or a 12V car power supply via (optional).

Code: PLM-JNGSMTX08
Price: € 1299.00 (VAT included) (more with video)

GSM bugs are one of the newest and fastest-growing class of eavesdropping devices. Basically, they are tiny cell phones, without a keypad or fancy options. All an eavesdropper has to do is plug in a SIM card, hide the GSM bug, and call the phone number whenever they want to listen-in.

This type of device has been very difficult to discover, until now. Murray Associates has a proprietary detection protocol aimed specifically at detecting GSM bugs. Concerned businesses and government agencies are invited to call us for further details.

Claims of Spying and Eavesdropping in Hard Rock Cafe Divorce Case

LA - The trial date has finally arrived in a suit filed in January, 2007, by Tarlton Pauley Morton against Peter Morton, her former husband. He is the Hard Rock Cafe co-founder who once counted the likes of Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Barry Diller among his investors — and who fed the rest of the town at his Morton’s restaurant.

Ms. Morton’s suit, which has been working its way through Los Angeles Superior Court’s Department 34, charges that Mr. Morton defrauded her of more than $10 million...


...Ms. Morton charged that Mr. Morton had hired private investigators to “engage in a massive course and practice of reprehensible invasions” of her privacy.

In her detailed complaint, Ms. Morton said she believed Mr. Morton and/or his agents trespassed in her home and hotel rooms, burglarized a personal assistant’s hospital room, cracked a safe, ordered a stalker to aim a recording device at her and her lawyer in a coffee shop and absconded with her pain medication... (
more)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Why Woodpeckers Peck

They may be digging for bugs.
They may be building a home.
But when they are whacking loudly on your roof or tin chimney cap (the louder, the better) we know...


...if a male bird is eavesdropping, the message they get is, "Don't mess with me, I'm the biggest, baddest woodpecker around!"


If a female flicker hears the hammering, she just might think, "Wow, what a hunk," and come a little closer to check him out in person. (more)

Not to be confused, of course, with the old Russian Woodpecker, who pecks peeked over the horizon. Why? To keep an eye on U.S.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Economic Intelligence - The New Oxymoron

Wall Street is laying off and the CIA has a full page recruitment ad in Forbes magazine. Seems oddly logical. When you need smart economic analysts, you go to Wall Street.

No wait...
That was last year.


These are strange days.

Coming up next...
"Let's go to the movies. It's just down this rabbit hole."

Witty Take on Corporate Espionage

A Dann Gire movie review...
After winning seven Oscar nominations for his excellent corporate drama "Michael Clayton," Tony Gilroy lightens up the cloak-and-dagger subculture of American business with "Duplicity," a witty, comic romance well-equipped with snappy dialogue, a time-twisted narrative and the closest character to James Bond that Clive Owen has ever handled...


Gilroy's fascination with corporate intrigue pays off. He immerses us in an authentic world of obsessive corporate competitors who go so far as to buy entire landfills just so they can go through the garbage for useful information...

With a title like "Duplicity," you know there's got to be a payoff waiting in the wings. (
more) (trailer)

Friday, March 20, 2009

Presenters at the CanSecWest security conference detailed on Thursday how they can sniff data by analyzing keystroke vibrations using a laser trained on a shiny laptop or through electrical signals coming from a PC connected to a PS/2 keyboard and plugged into a socket.

Using equipment costing about $80, researchers from Inverse Path were able to point a laser on the reflective surface of a laptop between 50 feet and 100 feet away and determine what letters were typed.


Chief Security Engineer Andrea Barisani and hardware hacker Daniele Bianco used a handmade laser microphone device and a photo diode to measure the vibrations, software for analyzing the spectrograms of frequencies from different keystrokes, as well as technology to apply the data to a dictionary to try to guess the words. They used a technique called dynamic time warping that's typically used for speech recognition applications, to measure the similarity of signals. (
more)

TGIF! Have fun this weekend.
Make a cheap laser microphone yourself.

Gregorian Eavesdropping Countermeasures

RI - Normally, churches invite the faithful in to unburden themselves to a priest in the privacy of a confessional for just a few minutes a week. But St. Joseph's will hear confessions for a seven-and-a-half hour stretch Saturday in its sixth annual “all-day confession” event... Gregorian chants reverberating in the background guarantee confessions will be eavesdrop-proof. (more)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Chinese spy who defected tells all... (yawn)

A veteran Chinese intelligence officer, Li Fengzhi, who defected to the United States says that his country's civilian spy service spends most of its time trying to steal secrets overseas... China's spy agency is focused on sending spies to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence community, and also on collecting secrets and technology from the United States. "China spends a tremendous effort to send out spies to important countries like the U.S. to collect information," Mr. Li said. (more)

$559,334. - An example of espionage legal fees.

The federal appeals court in Atlanta has upheld an extraordinary ruling in favor of Eagle Hospital Physicians in its bitter dispute with a consultant who accessed Eagle’s confidential e-mails.

The ruling Thursday by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means Steven R. Gerst and his companies, SRG Consulting and Hospitalist Physicians, must pay Eagle $559,334 in legal fees and $44,000 in damages.

When asked under oath how he did his electronic eavesdropping, Gerst invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The 11th Circuit Thursday agreed Gerst’s misconduct deserved such sanctions. (more)

Eavesdropping detection inspections are economical compared with the value of lost information - in this case, $44,000. Trying to recoup in court is the expensive part - in this case, $559,334. A win like this is unusual. Smarter... add eavesdropping detection audits to your security program to deter snoops in the first place.

"Just a min. We're on the phone."

Australia - New South Wales authorities are secretly combing through the phone records of more than 90,000 people a year, snooping on more people's communications than the rest of the country's officials combined...

The director of the Communications Law Centre, Professor Michael Fraser, has told ABC1's Lateline program he is concerned about the possible abuse of power. "Law enforcement can authorise it themselves. We need to have some checks and balances in place," he said...

No-one from the NSW Police or State Government was available to discuss the issue with Lateline... (more)

Not to be outdone by some NSW Aussies...

The UK government is considering a move that would have far-reaching privacy implications: storing all messages sent through web mail and social networking applications. (more)

Eavesdropping the Old Fashioned Way

SC - A Mount Pleasant resident called police because she thought her neighbor was eavesdropping on her from his backyard, reports say.

She told police March 4, that she was on the phone in the backyard by her pool when her dog began to bark at the fence... after seeing the shadow of a man, she called to her dog and then crouched down to catch a better glimpse of the man. She saw him get up and start running to his own pool. She reportedly said her neighbor has done similar things in the past. (more)