A Day at The International Spy Museum

The International Spy Museum is one of my favorite places. I spent the afternoon there yesterday.

If you have never been there, you "need to know" this... This is not some cheesy tourist trap one might find in Orlando. It is a quality museum in the finest sense of the word. The exhibits are first class, very educational, imaginative and entertaining—hard to do all in one shot, but they do it.

Visiting Washington, DC is always a compromise. There are so many great things to see and do. Do as many as you can, but save room for dessert. Visit the Spy Museum. It is history at its most relevant.

The newest exhibit – Cyber War – actually leaves people (me included) with a feeling of terror in the pit of the stomach. Yes, it is that well done. No, you won't like the feeling. I won't spoil it for you, but... think about what would happen if electricity were no longer available. All it might take are a few keystrokes.

"Aurora Experiment. In the Spy Museum’s new gallery dedicated to Cyber War, Weapons of Mass Disruption, video of an experiment conducted for the Department of Homeland Security depicts a simulated cyber attack on a generator control station. The simulation led to the generator’s destruction, demonstrating the all-too-real infrastructure vulnerabilities of the U.S power grid. On loan from four of the lead engineers who created and carried out the Aurora experiment, the Museum is pleased to display parts of the disabled generator."

As I was saying, they make espionage relevant. (more)

A Former KGB Lock Picker Discusses His Craft

Nicolai B. was, for thirty years, a senior operative of the KGB, stationed in Riga, Latvia. He and his colleagues were “laid off” in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reorganization of the Committee for State Security, one of the most feared entities by Soviet citizens. His comments and disclosures were of particular interest to me and my colleagues because of our work in designing, training, and using covert entry tools in connection with government operations. His job was to conduct sensitive “intrusions” into offices, homes, businesses and other facilities in order to gather information about suspected “enemies of the state.” The theft or covert copying of documents, installation of electronic eavesdropping devices and cameras, and the planting of evidence were all in a day’s job for this retired agent. (more)

AusCERT 2011 Conference — Smartphones: the perfect bugging device

Security experts at the AusCERT 2011 Conference in Queensland this week warned that serious attacks on mobile phones are expected before the end of this year, and that those attacks will involve tracking users, not just stealing their money.

On Wednesday, Amil Klein, CTO at Trusteer, explained how mobile malware has evolved to a stage where it can now bypass most banking security.

Graham Ingram, the general manager of AusCERT, backs this up.

"The genie is out of the bottle. The hardware is there, the software is there, the capability is there ... these guys will turn it around quickly, now. They know what to do, as soon as the reward is there — and it is clearly there — they will move rapidly into it, and I think that is going to shock a few people because we will wake up one morning and it will all be happening."

But it's not just users' bank accounts that are at stake; modern smartphones make the perfect bugging device.

The implications of being able to turn on a remote device that has the capacity to look at emails, geo-locate users, look at SMSes, listen to phone calls, record meetings and even turn on a camera are stunning. Intelligence agencies with these capabilities with a remote "on" button would be ecstatic. (more)

Tennis Players?!?! Where did the Mossad get that idea?

Undercover agents tracked a Syrian official carrying nuclear secrets to London where they broke into his hotel room and stole the plans as part of a daring operation on foreign soil by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, it has been claimed...

The operation involved at least 10 undercover agents on the streets of Britain and led directly to a controversial bombing raid into Syrian territory that destroyed a nuclear reactor that was under construction.

It closely mirrored the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas arms trader, who was killed in his hotel room in Dubai last year using agents disguised as tennis players. (more)

SpyCam Story #609 - Largest Video Monitoring Contract in History

In what it says is the “largest video monitoring contract in history,” Iverify at the end of April announced it won a five-year contract valued at $39 million to provide guard replacement and shrink-reduction services to 529 Family Dollar stores, nationwide.

Iverify president Mike May said Iverify brought big savings to the table for the Family Dollar.

"[They are] using a robust application that uses Cernium analytics for location-based risk assessment that triggers local announcements in the vicinity of high-shrink products. Further, with sophisticated time-based analysis, it then escalates the risk profile and engages a live intervention from a protection specialist," May told Security Systems News. "They then assess and respond to a protocol based in the actual risk. This is a best case model leveraging intelligent video coupled with a loss-prevention certified specialist that responds and reduces the customer's potential shrink losses." (more)

Think about it. Dollar Stores, yes DOLLAR STORES is going to invest about $14,750.00 per store, per year (actually more factoring in the "protection specialist" cost) to protect their dollar items from "walking"! They know the value of a dollar.

How much have you invested in your business counterespionage program to keep your intellectual secrets from "walking", your corporate secrets from "talking", and your strategic conversations from "bugging"? We can help, call us.

U.S. Secret Service to Enhance its Telecommunications Intercept Capabilities

The U.S. Secret Service wants to replace its existing telecommunications interception system with a new, all-inclusive intercept platform that can collect, analyze, decode and reconstruct voice, data and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) communications.

The new system will be used by approximately 250 Secret Service analysts, monitors and administrators, on a 24/7 basis, according to a sources sought notice published on May 12 by the DHS component.

“The system must be able to decode multiple specified common telecommunications application & network protocols,” said the agency. It must also support the automatic translation of intercepted messages in “numerous highly specific foreign languages,” which the Secret Service did not identify. (more)

U.N. Nuclear Agency Diplomats "Fear" Cell Phone Bugging During Visit to Iran

The U.N. nuclear agency is investigating fears from its experts that their cell phones and lap tops have been hacked into by Iranian officials looking for confidential information.

Diplomats tell The Associated press that the hardware apparently was tampered with while left unattended during inspection tours in the Islamic Republic. (more)

Pssst... Buy the book. Know for certain.

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Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

Cell Phone Spyware for Kids, or... The Santa Clause

South Africa - A new startup has entered the mobile stage to help parents keep track of their children’s mobile usage. Mobilflock a Cape Town-based startup, that says it makes “cell phones safe for kids by giving parents visibility over how they use their phones, and tools to protect their children from harm.”

The startup is the brain child of Patrick Lawson, founder of Clickatell who according to co-founder Vanessa Clark, “realised the need to protect children on their mobile phones in the same way you would them on a computer”.

The web is crawling with apps and websites that help parents track and protect their children from the dangers on line. Mobiflock joins the likes of Nokia’s Kno-Where an application that allows parents track their children’s whereabouts and activity on less savoury websites like Cell Phone Tracking, and provides parents or quardians with a way of ‘spying’ on any mobile phone...

Here is how it works, parents visit the website (or the soon to be launched Ovi Store and other apps) to download a client onto their child’s mobile. This client then gives parents access to a “secure” online dashboard to monitor phone traffic (calls, messages, web browsing, location), and parents can then set up security barriers and alerts for their child. (more)

Free Tickets to International Spy Museum with Stay at Marriott's Nearby "Safe House"

The Washington Marriott at Metro Center is offering an exciting downtown Washington, DC hotel package which includes Spy Museum tickets and hotel accommodations. With International Spy Museum tickets, guest can indulge in conspiracy theories, spy traps, military intelligence and the fascinating world of espionage... (more)

Sons of Blackwater Open Corporate Spying Shop

Veterans from the most infamous private security firm on Earth and one of the military’s most controversial datamining operations are teaming up to provide the Fortune 500 with their own private spies.

Take one part Blackwater, and another part Able Danger, the military data-mining op that claimed to have identified members of al-Qaida living in the United States before 9/11. Put ‘em together, and you’ve got a new company called Jellyfish. Jellyfish is about corporate-information dominance. (more)

VoIP Phone Eavesdropping Alert

Contact centers and businesses using a popular make of internet phone were at risk of having their communications intercepted and confidential information leaked, a hacking group demonstrated.

Security consultant Chris Gatford showed SC Magazine how internet-protocol phone systems from market leader Cisco were vulnerable out of the box to attacks that were widely known. He said customers of his had lost $20,000 a day through such exploits.

A Cisco spokesman said the networking vendor was serious about security and advised users to apply the relevant recommendations in the manual to secure their systems. 

( Products / Security)

Gatford said VoIP phone systems could turn on their users, hacked to become networked listening devices or 'bugs', wiretapped remotely or silenced, blacking out communications. Contact centers that often use internet-protocol phones because they were cheap to run, were especially at risk, he said.

“It is the closest attack in a real world environment that mimics so many of the scenes Hollywood likes to show us” Gatford said.

“You can imagine if you’re an employee who wants to listen into the boss during a meeting, that the phone in the conference room will be a target.” (more)

"£50,000, or yer lucky charms video goes public."

 Ireland - A group of men allegedly demanded £50,000 from a businessman by threatening to release a stolen video to the media, a court has heard.

Belfast Crown Court heard that police arrested two of the five defendants minutes after the alleged victim, known as Witness A, handed over £15,000.

A barrister told the court that the video was inside a car belonging to Witness A which was stolen in 2001.

He added the video "was of a nature that he did not want anyone to see". (more)

Super Injunctions - The New Privacy Club

Something rather interesting is happening to privacy, in the breakneck world of the internet. It's being privatized.

Legislatures around the world are flummoxed by the sheer breadth of the internet-related privacy issues piling up with exponential speed on their doorsteps...

As governments struggle with these questions, the privacy mercenaries are moving in. The most obvious example currently is in the United Kingdom, where a court remedy known as the "super injunction" has evolved as a high-priced means of shutting down unfavorable stories about celebrities and business people in the media. Here's how it works... (more)

More Sports Spying - The 2018 World Cup Caper

England football chiefs hired a team of spies to snoop on rival bidders for the 2018 World Cup, it was claimed yesterday.

Undercover agents were paid by the FA to infiltrate Zurich hotels where Fifa committee members were staying last December and report what they learned.

One FA spy even mingled with guests – including Prince William, PM David Cameron and David Beckham, who were drafted in at the last minute to lobby for the bid – in the city’s Baur au Lac hotel...

The FA refused to comment ­officially yesterday, but a 2018 official admitted to the Mirror: “Yes, we had a private security team.

“There were undercover people inside the Baur au Lac. They were in the lobby and the bar, listening in. It’s not illegal to listen to conversations.” (more)

Why is this important to you?

Sports is just another business. Big business. Just like your big business. The same tactics are being used against you. Most often it is successful and unnoticed. Time to bring a counterespionage consultant on board.