TX - A state district judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Houston-based Schlumberger Ltd. against a former employee who had left the company for a vice president job at a rival oilfield services company, Baker Hughes Inc.
Schlumberger had accused former employee Humair Shaikh of allegedly stealing trade secrets, but the two parties have reached a settlement...
The initial lawsuit alleged that Shaikh had violated confidentiality and noncompete agreements by taking trade secrets on four different USB drives when he left. (more)
Business espionage goes undiscovered, ignored, swept under the carpet, and settled out of court all the time.
Espionage is difficult to stop without a real commitment to protection.
The common thread is that the stolen digital data often travels via USB memory sticks, and this is preventable. We can show you how.
A variant of the infamous banking trojan Zeus has gone beyond targeting financial accounts, instead striving to collect another type of sensitive business data: customer information.
The variant, known as Dyre, is a banking trojan that first came to light in June when security companies warned that the Zeus knockoff found a way to bypass Web encryption, known as secure sockets layer (SSL). At the time, it targeted some of the largest global banks, such as Bank of America, Citibank, Natwest, RBS, and Ulsterbank. A recent version of Dyre, however, has begun targeting Salesforce, a popular cloud service for storing customer information, according to analyses.
Other cloud services could just as easily be targeted, according to security firm Adallom. (more)
Sixty percent of the infected devices run Android.
Fifteen million mobile devices are infected with malware, and most of those run Android, according to a new report by Alcatel-Lucent's Kindsight Security Labs.
Researchers found that "increasingly applications are spying on device owners, stealing their personal information and pirating their data minutes, causing bill shock." Mobile spyware, in particular, is on the rise. Four of the 10 top threats are spyware, including SMSTracker, which allows the attacker to remotely track and monitor all calls, SMS/MMS messages, GPS locations, and browser histories of an Android device...
About sixty percent of the infected devices are Android smartphones. About 40 percent are Windows PCs connecting through mobile networks. Windows Mobile, iPhones, Blackberrys, and Symbian devices combine for less than 1 percent. (more)
A new prototype light detector uses graphene's light-absorbing properties to see in a broad band of light wavelengths that includes terahertz waves. These fall between the microwave and infrared bands, thereby making it possible to look just beneath the surface of opaque objects such as skin and plastic...
So where might such a detector be used? In security scanners, for example, it could identify concealed weapons without invading bodily privacy. It could also make medical imaging safer and more effective.
Other applications include chemical sensing, remote bomb detection, night vision goggles/cameras, high-altitude telecommunications, manufacturing quality control (as terahertz waves penetrate cardboard and plastic), preventing premature car rusting, and even 3D printing.
A paper describing the research was published recently in the journal Nature. (more) (Get the T-shirt)
I see TSCM applications, too. ~Kevin
As smartphone usage grows in the business, many users still don’t understand proper security practices. If not addressed, this problem could put their (and your company’s) sensitive data at risk. Learn how your users can better protect themselves from mobile security threats. (7 Tips) (7 more Tips, including one from us!)
via the Weinberger Law Group...
It’s a common situation we hear about when adultery (either actual or suspected) is involved in the demise of a marriage: one spouse decides to spy on the other. While in years past, snooping on a spouse usually entailed rifling through purses or pockets (or hiring a private investigator to catch cheaters in the act), in this day and age, spousal snooping more often involves hacking into email accounts and installing tracer apps on smartphones.
Beyond the moral issues any form of spying raises, are these high tech forms of snooping even legal?
As the law on “inter-spousal spying” stands right now, it depends on the type of snooping and spying you’re engaged in. According to the federal wiretapping laws and the New Jersey Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (N.J.S.A. 2A:156A), activities that may be illegal or constitute a violation of privacy include the following... (more)
Also... Learn how to protect yourself from high tech snooping (and learn when
spying can be considered stalking) at the Weinberger Law Group companion blog, Spying on Your Spouse During Divorce: How Far is Too Far?
Israel remotely detonated a spying device planted in south Lebanon, killing a member of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah in the explosion, the group said Friday.
Hezbollah Al-Manar TV said Hassan Ali Haidar was killed after army intelligence spotted a "strange device" in the village of Adloun. A jet detonated the device remotely after it was discovered, killing Haidar, it said.
The device was planted on the militant group's telecommunications network. (more)
When disclosures from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden were first published by journalists, government officials in the United States insisted that US intelligence agencies do not engage in economic espionage. But, as the revelations continued to trickle out and expose the duplicity of this assertion, officials shifted to suggesting that any economic espionage is not done to benefit the bottom lines of US corporations.
Now, a copy of a secret 2009 report [PDF], the Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review, from the Office of Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), which is headed by James Clapper, has been published by The Intercept. It was provided by Snowden and shows “intelligence community” plans to acquire “proprietary information” from companies around the world and assess whether and how “findings would be useful to US industry.” (more)
Wouldn't we just be
ge, ge, ge, getting
our own secrets back? Hah!
...a neighbors' spying fears may sink young seadog's pirate ship.
UK - When his parents built a play pirate ship in his back garden, four-year-old Joseph Bailey was thrilled.
The wooden ship, crafted from recycled timber, became his pride and joy and the ‘labour of love’ was admired by everyone who saw it.
But then a neighbor complained to the council that Joseph was invading their privacy, claiming he could spy on them over the fence.
And despite his parents erecting a bamboo screen to solve any privacy issues, the 19ft by 8ft ship, complete with Jolly Roger, now faces demolition. (more)
P.S. The "pirate" doesn't appear to own a spyglass.
Embry-Riddle University -
The College of Security and Intelligence was kicked off last spring and the Doherty center was unveiled, but this fall marks the time when activities have begun in earnest.
The College of Security and Intelligence welcomed the first incoming students for the Masters program in Security and Intelligence Studies...
This semester, the college brought in more than 100 new incoming students in its different programs. The Cyber program will double in size, and just in time, the new Cyber Lab is taking shape next to the Eagle Operations Center. It will house 24 workstations, a rack of servers, and an area for forensics activities. (more)
KUWAIT - Customs inspectors at the Air Cargo section recently foiled an attempt by Kuwaitis to smuggle into the country sophisticated spying, eavesdropping and photography items, reports Al-Shahed daily. The confiscated items include cigarette lighters, pens and stationery. The cargo reportedly arrived from one of the Asian countries and the bill of lading listed the contents as stationery items. Police are investigating. (more)
A 98-year-old New Jersey woman convicted of conspiracy in the run-up to the atomic spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has come back to a New York court to clear her name.
Miriam Moskowitz said after a brief court hearing Monday that she needs an official vindication that she was wrongly convicted in 1950. She was sentenced to two years in prison after she was convicted on a charge that she conspired with two men to lie to a grand jury investigating atomic espionage...
She filed the request two weeks ago, saying documents now prove the government withheld evidence that would have exonerated her. (more)
UAE - A 28-year-old woman sustained serious injuries after she was run over by her boyfriend’s car in Sharjah on Monday evening... A day before the incident, she said, she had a talk with him about their future, during which her boyfriend remained non committal. This prompted the woman to follow and spy on her boyfriend... She claimed that when she confronted him, he ran over her with his car twice. (more)
By Santiago A. Cueto
Industrial Espionage is the biggest threat to U.S. business interests. No other threat even comes close. It’s the fastest and least expensive way for our foreign competitors to bridge the innovation gap with the U.S. Using cutting-edge technology and age-old techniques of deceit and manipulation, corporate spies are the greatest post-cold war threat to international business.
Today’s international conflicts are not limited to nation to nation disputes. Increasingly, they include corporation versus corporation. (The 37 Tactics)
Citing an endless river of filth, vacuous conversations, idiotic Tweets and endless cat videos, the NSA announced it is “freaking done” with spying on Americans.
The NSA decision came only hours after thousands of analysts, following similar threats at CIA, said they planned to quit and apply for jobs as Apple Geniuses and Best Buy Geek Squad Support workers.
Speaking on background, one disgruntled NSA employee said “Go ahead, throw me in jail for an Espionage Act violation, that would be better than doing this job." (more)
The variant, known as Dyre, is a banking trojan that first came to light in June when security companies warned that the Zeus knockoff found a way to bypass Web encryption, known as secure sockets layer (SSL). At the time, it targeted some of the largest global banks, such as Bank of America, Citibank, Natwest, RBS, and Ulsterbank. A recent version of Dyre, however, has begun targeting Salesforce, a popular cloud service for storing customer information, according to analyses. 
It’s a common situation we hear about when adultery (either actual or suspected) is involved in the demise of a marriage: one spouse decides to spy on the other. While in years past, snooping on a spouse usually entailed rifling through purses or pockets (or hiring a private investigator to catch cheaters in the act), in this day and age, spousal snooping more often involves hacking into email accounts and installing tracer apps on smartphones. 
