Business Survival™ Weblog

Sure, dealing with business spies is important. That's probably why you're here. But what about all the other business risks you face? Where can you go for help and advice?

One place you should visit each day is Rothstein Associates Inc. Business Survival™ Weblog.

Here is a tip I recently picked up while visiting...

Many of us have had to deal with mentally unstable people at different times and at different levels of the corporate world, including those at executive levels tasked with making significant decisions for their organizations.

Like pornography, a lack of mental stability in people, especially in the workplace, is something most of us recognize when we see it. The effects of mental illness often cause serious negative impacts on the departments and the people the sick individuals interact with. But, because mental illness is still a taboo subject in corporate America, these people remain in their high level posts “undiscovered” for years.

See Dealing with Mentally Unstable Managers, by Joel Font, CISA, CBCP.

Philip J. Rothstein's Business Survival™ Weblog is loaded with tips like this one. It even has a special feeds called Global Disaster Alert (that'll cheer you up in the morning) and Business Survival™ News.

Breaking into Your Garage

If you have an automatic garage door opener, you may want to move your valuables somewhere else. This video shows how a burglar can open a closed (and supposedly locked) garage door, quietly, in less than six seconds! 

Security Scrapbook Tip #203: Secure the interior mechanical pull with a bent wire (a section of old coat hanger will do). Objective... pulling on the lever or cord will do no good until the wire is removed.

False Friends

Australia - It is alleged one of the bank's Melbourne-based debt collectors set up a fake account on the social networking site to covertly gather debtors' addresses, phone numbers and emails.

More than 80 people added "Max Bourke" as a contact before the fake profile was removed from the website yesterday.

ANZ spokesman Stephen Ries says several staff members are under investigation for their role in the online spying. (more)

App The Untappable

via Forbes...

Worried about the NSA, the FBI, criminals or cyberspies electronically eavedropping on your private phone calls? There may be an untappable app for that. 

On Tuesday, an independent hacker and security researcher who goes by the handle Moxie Marlinspike and his Pittsburgh-based startup Whisper Systems launched free public betas for two new privacy-focused programs on Google's Android mobile platform: RedPhone, a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) program that encrypts phone calls, and TextSecure, an app for sending and receiving encrypted text messages and scrambling the messages stored in their inbox. (more)

ISS LEO BUG TAP CONFAB

Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering

ISS World Europe, hosted in Prague (June 2-4), is the world's largest gathering of European law enforcement, intelligence, defense, homeland security analysts and telecom operators responsible for lawful interception, electronic investigations and network intelligence gathering.

Track 1: ISS for Telecom Operator Lawful Interception
Track 2: ISS for Criminal Investigation
Track 3: ISS for Data Retention and Regulatory Compliance
Track 4: ISS for Mobile Location, Surveillance and Intercept 
Track 5: DPI for Lawful Interception, Network Security and Traffic Management
Track 6: ISS for Intelligence Gathering and Analysis
Track 7: LEA and Intelligence Analyst Training and Product Demonstrations 

Certificate of LEA/Intell Communication Monitoring and Surveillance Training Completion available upon request. (more)

TSCM Tools of the Trade

Many (but not all) tools of the TSCM trade are featured in the June issue of WIRED Magazine.

Russians and Chinese agents "spying on German firms wholesale"

Germany is full of Russian and Chinese spies working to get information about top business and technology developments, according to the country’s domestic intelligence service. 

Studies show that the German economy loses around €50 billion a year as a consequence, Burkhard Even, head of the counterintelligence section of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told the audience at a recent security forum in Bonn...

He also described more underhand methods which he said were often employed by agents posing as visiting business delegations or even trainees who might use mini cameras to take pictures in factories, or secretly copy data. (more)

RoboBug

An innovator, Robert Wood who is an assistant professor at Harvard University is developing robotic flies. New kind of fabrication process is used in that tiny robot. The functionality of bending folding and stretching will be made possible by the help of polymer and nano carbon fibers. Using these techniques Wood made the world's tiniest robot capable of flying freely and taking pictures. This nano technology can used to make crawling, swimming and jumping bugs. (more)

The IT Girls

A study of British middle-aged couples found that 14% of wives spy on their husband’s emails, 13% read their mobile phone text messages and 10% check web browser logs. This is roughly twice the level of spousal spying that is found among men. Women are also far better at it than men, the researchers found. It appears that some women develop their IT skills simply to improve their surveillance techniques. (more)

Sex tape scandal spurs wiretapping phobia among deputies

Turkey - With the recent posting online of footage showing former Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal with a deputy from his party in an intimate setting, more and more politicians are taking measures against surveillance devices in their offices.

Many deputies are now using the 10-day break in Parliament to clean up their chambers in order to see if there are any bugs or other monitoring devices inside the room. Some have installed jammers or other preventive devices.

More than 75 deputies have employed “hunter” systems to detect hidden cameras and microphones. Fifty deputies have ordered jammers from the Tayama Security Company alone, according to executives at the company, which earlier briefed deputies in Parliament on installing such systems. They also said many deputies took these devices wherever they went. The company sells this system for $700. Parliament officials say other deputies have turned to other companies. (...for professional TSCM sweep services. These are the smart deputies. Save a spot on YouTube for the ones who bought the gadgets.) (more)

The Last 24

Time has run out for the paranoid spy TV series 24.

FutureWatch...

GSM Bug Prices Continue to Drop!

A few months ago, we found GSM bugs being sold on ebay in the $19-$60 range. Today, direct-from-the-manufacturer samples are advertised for $13.05. (Quantity pricing is even lower.)

Finding these normally dormant eavesdropping bugs is problematic. Digital Surveillance Location Analysis™ (DSLA™) is one very effective detection technique.

Business executives – You can no longer skate on the chance that one of these won't end up in your Boardroom. 

Quarterly eavesdropping detection audits are more important than ever. Be sure your TSCM provider is aware of this new threat, and can effectively deal with it. (Click graphic to enlarge it.)

(Update) One of our sharper colleagues noted the logo on this thing and mused... "Wonder what they think about the use of their logo?"

Hummmm... I seem to recall (this) (and this). But, nah. That would be too much of a stretch :)

An Old Score Settled

Italy - Italian magistrates and media are up in arms over a government attempt to restrict wiretaps and slap fines and jail sentences on newspapers that publish transcripts, saying it will help criminals and muzzle the press.

While the centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says it wants to protect privacy, the opposition says the government is just scrambling to cover up widespread corruption in its ranks with yet another tailor-made law...

The bill languished in parliament for months. But the government quickly dusted it off after newspapers published leaked transcripts from a high-profile graft probe into public work contracts that has tainted Berlusconi's cabinet. (more) (background)

Quote of the Week - The BugNets are Coming

"Remote surveillance is a significantly invasive threat, arguably even more so than identity theft. As it stands now, most vulnerable devices (mobile devices and computers) do not have the protection necessary to distinctly address microphone or camera hijacks. As a growing number of mobile devices with exploitable operation systems gain more reliable Internet access, this long standing problem is reaching a critical potential." 

from Roving Bugnet: Distributed Surveillance Threat and Mitigation
by Ryan Farley and Xinyuan Wang

Mobile Phone Eavesdropping - The Next Level

Imagine sitting in a café and discussing the details of a business proposal with a potential client. Neither you nor the client has a laptop; you're just two people having a conversation. But unbeknownst to you, someone half a world away is listening to every word you say. Later, as you leave, you receive a text message referring to the proposal and demanding money in exchange for silence.

Recent research from two universities suggests that such a remote-eavesdropping scenario may soon be possible.

According to George Mason University researchers Ryan Farley and Xinyuan Wang, cell phones make excellent surveillance devices for remote snoops. In a paper, Farley and Wang discuss a "modernized mic hijacker" [PDF] that an attacker could control over what they call a "roving bugnet." The eavesdropper would use a piece of malware called a "bugbot" to listen in on in-person interactions via a nearby smartphone or laptop. Such attacks would be more likely to target specific people (a wayward spouse, say) than to play a role in widespread attacks on the general public. (more)