The Rise of Workplace Spying

A growing number of companies are using technology to monitor their employees' emails, phone calls, and movements. Here's everything you need to know:

How are employees being tracked?
In almost every way...

When did companies start snooping?
Bosses have always kept a close eye on employees. Henry Ford famously paced the factory floor with a stopwatch, timing his workers' motions in a bid for greater efficiency. He also hired private investigators to spy on employees' home lives to make sure personal problems didn't interfere with their work performance...  

Does this boost efficiency?
Yes, according to the data...

Who does the actual monitoring?
It's all done automatically: Software programs scan employees' email accounts and computer files and alert supervisors to anything inappropriate...

What else are they looking for?
Some companies search for evidence that employees might be thinking about quitting...

Can employees stop this tracking?
Generally, no. Most employee contracts give management free rein to do what it wants with data gathered from office-issued equipment, but some surveilled workers are fighting back...

Listening in at the water cooler.
If you find the idea of your boss reading your emails creepy, how about having your location, tone of voice, and conversation length monitored throughout the working day? Boston-based analytics firm Sociometric Solutions has supplied some 20 companies with employee ID badges fitted with microphone, location sensor, and accelerometer... more

Brazen Snoop Goes to Digital Extremes for Game Scoop

Lousy security, but “great food.”

That was a parting shot from a snoop who slipped into a London digital gaming company, hung out there for the day, ate a free lunch — then spilled details online about a new game the firm is developing.
The security breach last week at Digital Extremes, the city’s largest gaming company, underlines the perils of the open workplace that sets tech companies apart from many businesses, one observer said.

“This case illustrates the risk for any technology company of having an open environment and how vulnerable they can be to corporate espionage,” independent technology analyst Carmi Levy said. “There is a risk, when a stranger walks into an office, of losing trade secrets . . . They have to prevent that.” more

One Way to Silence Your On-Air Competition - Sue them for wiretapping!

Philippines - A municipal councilor in Aklan has sued a broadcaster for wiretapping after he allegedly taped a private conversation without the official’s consent. 

In a complaint filed before the provincial prosecutor’s office on July 3, Augusto Tolentino, a councilor of the capital town of Kalibo, accused Ma-ann Lachica of violating Republic Act 4200 (Anti-Wiretapping Act), punishable with imprisonment from six months to six years.

In his complaint, Tolentino, a veteran broadcaster who currently hosts a radio program, accused Lachica of recording a conversation of the official with broadcaster Rolly Herrera at the session hall of the municipal building in September 2014. more

How Hackable is Your Life (infographic)

If you're reading this, there's 69 percent chance you will become a victim of hacking at some point in your lifetime. And if you think protecting yourself is as easy as changing a couple passwords and installing some anti-virus software, you're 100 percent wrong.

Luckily, the paranoia-inducing infographic below will whip you into shape, stat. Find out how hackers gain access to your information, all the scary things they can do with it, and what you can do to protect yourself.

more

Man Tapes Upstairs Neighbor with Pole-Mounted Spycam - Claims "Investigative purposes"

MD - Imagine living on the third floor of your condominium building and glancing outside to find a camera looking back. That is exactly what a woman told police she saw, and now her downstairs neighbor is facing multiple criminal charges.

According to police, Donald Beard, 60, repeatedly attached a camera to a long metal pole. Beard would then walk onto his second floor balcony... and hoist the pole, camera rolling, to spy on the woman who lived upstairs.

Around 10 p.m. one night... the victim looked outside her living room window and saw a metal pole swinging back-and-forth. A camera was attached, recording her every move. She immediately called police...

While searching Beard's computers, external hard drives, flash cards, cell phones, tablets, cameras, and other electronic devices, detectives say they uncovered 16 individual videos of the victim. One clip showed the middle-aged women topless.

As for a motive, Beard reportedly told police his unique surveillance mission was "for investigative purposes", claiming his neighbor was spending time with married men and he wanted to catch her in the act...

Police say Beard also kept an audio journal of the victim's daily activities.  more video

Employee Security Awareness Training: Keeping Your Data Safe

"Human Error is among the most common causes of data loss and security breaches."

Develop a compelling security awareness training that improves employee behavior. Join this FREE webinar and learn about best practices on securing your data from sophisticated attacks. Security experts from Smarttech and Security Innovation will place a great emphasis on:

• Hacker Tools and Types of Attacks
• Why Employees Are the Perfect Target
• How a Breach Can Hurt Your Organization
• Mitigation Strategies and Tools 

Date: Thursday, July 9
Time: 10-11 AM EDT

Presenters:
Ronan Murphy
CEO, Smarttech

Ed Adams
CEO, Security Innovation

Registration 

Corporate Espionage: not your typical sports-“gate”

Generally when one refers to “competitors” in the context of protecting trade secrets, it is in regard to business competitors, not competing sports teams...

Recently, however, the worlds of sports and trade secret protection collided on the baseball diamond when the St. Louis Cardinals were accused of hacking into the Houston Astros’ internal computer network and stealing proprietary information. According to the New York Times, Cardinals employees gained access to the Astros’ “internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports,” which the Astros no doubt would prefer to keep private. Specifically:

Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager, who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011. more

The Sticker on Your Smartphone Battery is Not a Spy

A video showing an NFC-clad sticker on a battery in a smartphone has gone viral today. This video suggests that this smartphone was using an NFC sticker to "record every photo of yours on your battery."

What we're going to need to do right now is get very serious and very clear about this situation. Your battery - and the NFC antenna that may or may not be attached to it - is not stealing your photos and sending them to our estranged government overlords. It's just not. more

What's Dumber than the Coach Spying on his Team?

(Admitting it?)

In Internet lingo, Mike Krzyzewski is actually a "creeper."

The Blue Devils head coach confessed to ESPN.com that he has set up a secret Twitter account so he can monitor what his players are up to.

This was Krzyzewski's response when asked if he's on social media:

"I follow guys. I don't want to be on Twitter because I don't care. I don't want their opinions. I don't need to show that I have X amount of followers. But I follow a lot of people on Twitter, under an alias. I tell my guys, 'I'm following you.' Then if I see something, you text them, you gotta watch. But there are a lot of cool things that they do. I do like that they do it." more

Bugging Devices Found in 2 CHP Deputies’ Offices in Parliament

Turkey - Security at Parliament found bugging devices in the parliamentary offices of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies Mustafa Balbay and Özgür Özel on Thursday and Friday.

Deputies who took their oaths in Parliament following their election in the June 7 general election began to move into their new rooms in Parliament. CHP İzmir deputy Balbay also moved into his room and an ordinary security search was conducted. During the search, security officers received strong signals from the frame of a photo of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Parliament security recorded the findings of the search and decided to request assistance from the police to search the room again with more advanced devices.

After Balbay's room, a bugging device was also found in the former office of the new CHP parliamentary group chairman, Özel. Security officers found the bugging device installed in an electrical socket in the room. Speaking to reporters about the device, Özel said no one had being using the room before him, and added that he will request that Parliament's security officers search all the parliamentary offices being used by CHP deputies. more

Exit Interiew, or why we love the 4th of July

A raft of recent executions and forced disappearances in North Korea linked to the secret wiretapping of high-ranking officials has prompted members of the leadership to abandon their homes, according to sources inside the country.

Since assuming control of North Korea following the death of his father and predecessor Kim Jong Il in December 2011, regime leader Kim Jong Un has carried out a near-continuous series of high-level purges, including his own uncle last year.

The practice has sparked a debate among residents of the capital Pyongyang about what has led to the executions and disappearances, with the consensus being that the homes of the officials had been wiretapped by North Korea’s formidable State Security Department. more

Radio Bug in a Pita Steals Laptop Crypto Keys

The list of paranoia-inducing threats to your computer’s security grows daily: Keyloggers, trojans, infected USB sticks, ransomware…and now the rogue falafel sandwich.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University and Israel’s Technion research institute have developed a new palm-sized device that can wirelessly steal data from a nearby laptop based on the radio waves leaked by its processor’s power use.

Their spy bug, built for less than $300, is designed to allow anyone to “listen” to the accidental radio emanations of a computer’s electronics from 19 inches away and derive the user’s secret decryption keys, enabling the attacker to read their encrypted communications. And that device, described in a paper they’re presenting at the Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems in September, is both cheaper and more compact than similar attacks from the past—so small, in fact, that the Israeli researchers demonstrated it can fit inside a piece of pita bread.

“The result is that a computer that holds secrets can be readily tapped with such cheap and compact items without the user even knowing he or she is being monitored,” says Eran Tomer, a senior lecturer in computer science at Tel Aviv University. “We showed it’s not just possible, it’s easy to do with components you can find on eBay or even in your kitchen.” more / research paper

Imagine these being built into restaurant and hotel room table tops.

Is Someone Listening? - Infographic History of Electronic Surveillance

Is Someone Listening? - Infographic History of Electronic Surveillance
 

Source: SecurityDegreeHub.com

Espionage in the Sports World

A lawsuit accuses a Sporting Innovations co-founder of corporate espionage.

Sporting Innovations, which develops technological applications for professional sports teams and entertainment groups, fired its co-CEO, Asim Pasha, June 16 and then took him to court a day later. The company says he spent the last year there using its resources to prepare the launch of a competing business.

The firm, affiliated with the owners of Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City, filed suit June 17 in the U.S. District Court of Western Missouri, accusing Pasha and his son, Zain Pasha, of colluding with a New York company to create a similar enterprise and misappropriating Sporting Innovations' proprietary business information in the process. The 28-page filing also accuses Pasha of running up "tens of thousands" of dollars in charges on company-issued credits cards to fund personal expenses. more

Cardinals Hack Astros - Baseball Spygate

More details are emerging about the federal investigation into whether Cardinals employees may have hacked into the Houston Astros database. 

The latest revelations come from an unnamed law enforcement official who is reportedly familiar with the FBI’s investigation into the Cardinals. That official told Yahoo Sports that the computer used to allegedly hack into the Astros network was located in a Jupiter, Florida house. Jupiter is of course where the Cardinals hold spring training.

The law enforcement official also told Yahoo Sports that a number of Cardinals employees used the house and that the data stolen during the alleged hacking provided insight regarding the Astros opinions on players and the teams trade talks. The New York Times initially broke the story about the alleged hacking investigation on Tuesday. more