Corporate Espionage: Beware the Cupid Spy

Between oversharing about their job and workplace with dating matches and divulging trade secrets, 25% of business leaders using dating apps may be accidentally threatening their workplace's security, according to new research from Kaspersky Lab...

Of those using dating apps, 19% of business leaders have had their device infected via a dating app, including malware, spyware, or ransomware...

The work-related bragging can lead to infected devices and corporate espionage if trade secrets fall into the wrong hands, the report said. If malware allows a match access to a work device, the attacker may have access to work documents stored on that device. more sing-a-long

Foreign Agent Man

A new report by a U.S. government panel has called for staff members of Chinese state-run media groups in the U.S. to be made to register as foreign agents.

The U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission alleged Wednesday that journalists at some Chinese media organizations engage in spying activities, feeding information back to the Chinese government.

The report comes just days after the production company behind the American version of the Russian state-funded network RT officially filed as a foreign agent following pressure from the Department of Justice. more

The concerns are justified. I've seen proof. ~Kevin

Wiretapper's "Suicide" - Update

Greek officials did not adequately investigate the death of a telephone company executive found hanging in his apartment a day before lawmakers and the prime minister learned their cellphones had been tapped, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

Costas Tsalikidis, a Vodafone Greece executive, was found hanging in his Athens apartment...

An investigation into the wiretaps revealed another telecom had planted spyware into Vodafone’s equipment, and that Tsalikidis had allowed the spyware’s placement and met regularly with the other telecom. The wiretaps went live in June 2004 and were removed a day before Tsalikidis’ death.

Tsalikidis’ family refused to accept the man had taken his own life and hired their own investigators, who uncovered several inconsistencies to the suicide theory.

• a lack of injuries common during hanging, contradictions as to the rope marks on Tsalikidis’ neck,
• and an extremely complex sailing knot used for the noose that would have been quite impossible given Tsalikidis’ complete lack of sailing experience...

Investigators ... did find...

• Tsalikidis’ hyoid bone was broken – an indication he’d been strangled. 
• Tsalikidis’ personality was not compatible with a suicide profile...

The court ordered the Greek government to pay Tsalikidis’ family $59,000 in damages.

After years of investigating, the Greek government issued an international arrest warrant for a CIA official they believe was at the heart of the wiretapping affair while he was stationed in Athens. more

Remember The Fugs?

Quote of the Week – Bob Woodward on J. Edgar Hoover

"FBI director J. Edgar Hoover didn’t object to Nixon’s wiretapping because it was illegal, he objected because wiretapping was his job!" — legendary journalist Bob Woodward, who spoke Thursday night to a packed house at the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall.

Corporate Espionage: Spies Have a Deep Black Bag of Tricks

A Toronto-based private equity firm is alleging that its employees were targeted in a covert corporate espionage operation involving an agency with operations in London, Paris and Tel Aviv staffed by former members of the Israeli Defense Force and former agents of intelligence agency Mossad.

The agency cited in court documents filed by West Face Capital Inc. is Black Cube, the same one reportedly retained on behalf of former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to investigate women who had accused him of sexual misconduct...

Some, including the former general counsel of West Face, were wined and dined, and flown to England on the false pretense that they were being courted for employment with international companies, the court documents allege...

The court documents filed by West Face Wednesday say different approaches were used for each employee or former employee approached, but that there were common elements, including “using false businesses, websites, identities, LinkedIn profiles, and business cards.” more

Wiretapper's "Suicide" Revisited for Foul Play

An appeals court prosecutor in Athens has asked to see the case file concerning the death of a telecoms engineer in 2005 shortly before the outbreak of a scandal involving the wiretapping of Greece’s political leadership...

The decision to revisit the case came after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) deemed on Thursday that Greece had failed to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of former Vodafone employee Costas Tsalikidis, 38, who was found hanged in his apartment.

The investigating prosecutor at the time, Ioannis Diotis, had ruled out foul play, concluding that Tsalikidis had committed suicide.

Tsalikidis’s death occurred the day after the spyware planted in Vodafone’s network was removed...

The spyware diverted phone conversations made by Vodafone’s subscribers to 14 “shadow” pay-as-you-go mobile phones, allowing calls to be monitored. more sing-a-long

Spy Store Helps You Be Big Brother

You're not paranoid: Someone may be watching you. Friday's opening of Spysite.com's first New Jersey store, on Route 23, is the proof.

The new location specializes in covert surveillance. Got an overbearing boss? They'll sell you a pen that will secretly record him. Suspect your neighbors are stealing your packages? Owner Grant Huber can sell you a camera and tell you where to hide it so no one suspects...

Employees will show buyers how to use all the gadgets they sell. more

Fun fact: Radio Shack employees were not allowed to instruct customers how to spy using their merchandise. For the answer as to why, click here. ~Kevin

Germany to Parents - Destroy Your Child's Smartwatch

Germany's regulatory arm for electricity, gas, telecommunications, post, and railway markets, has issued a ban on smartwatches designed for children over concerns that they can be used by parents to spy on their kids and teachers.

Furthermore, the regulatory office is urging parents to go a step further and physically destroy these smartwatches, should their children own one. The agency has also taken action against several firms that offer smartwatches designed for children.

"Via an app, parents can use such children's watches to listen unnoticed to the child's environment and they are to be regarded as an authorized transmitting system," said Jochen Homann, president of the Federal Network Agency. "According to our research, parents' watches are also used to listen to teachers in the classroom." more

TSCM Security Tip: Check Hotel Ownership

Many hotels, conference centers and resorts are controlled or owned by governments engaging in business espionage. Checking the ownership before booking your off-site meetings and general business travel can significantly reduce your risk of electronic surveillance.

Click for interactive map.

From a New York Times article, Foiling Cyberspies on Business Trips...
Evan Anderson, chief executive of Invnt/IP, a group dedicated to combating nation-sponsored intellectual property theft...said he created a map of Chinese-owned hotels around the world in 2016 and was surprised by how many they were, including some in Silicon Valley where technology companies hold meetings. “Most people don’t realize that an individual Four Seasons hotel, Ritz-Carlton, or many other brands can be owned by a Chinese company with close ties to the Chinese government,” he said.

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Checking venue ownership is the first step to reducing the risk of intellectual property theft. The second step is hiring a Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) specialist. They will search for all types of electronic surveillance (i.e., audio bugging, video voyeurism, and data cybersecurity), before and during your stay.

Security directors from Fortune 1000 companies are invited to receive my free Off-Site Meeting Security Checklist — 25 recommendations / 5-page report. ~Kevin

Sports Espionage: Honduras Accuses Australia of Spying by Drone

Honduras accused Australia of spying on their training sessions with a drone on Monday, as tensions heated up ahead of Wednesday's decisive World Cup playoff match.

The Honduran National Football Federation (FENAFUTH) posed 18 seconds of footage of a drone flying above Sydney's Olympic Stadium, where the team trained on Monday after their long flight from central America.


"Australia spied on Honduras's official training session from a drone, causing discomfort among the Honduran team and delegation," FENAFUTH said on its Twitter feed. more

Industrial Espionage “can be done cheaply and at scale”

The admonitions to business travelers headed to other countries should be familiar by now: Keep your laptop with you at all times. Stay off public Wi-Fi networks. Don’t send unencrypted files over the internet...

“There’s a difficult intersection between convenience and security,” said Samantha Ravich, who studies cyber-enabled economic warfare at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security...

The problem of intellectual property theft is not new, but it is now much more widespread. “Placing listening devices in conference rooms, hotels and restaurants is traditional Espionage 101,” Ms. Ravich said. But with tools like tiny inexpensive cameras and microphones or compromised Wi-Fi networks, corporate or state-sponsored industrial espionage “can be done cheaply and at scale,” she said. more

How Pinkerton laid the foundation for the CIA and FBI

Allan Pinkerton, the grandaddy of American private eyes, has a “true detective” story made for the binge-watch era.

Pinkerton (left). Restored image. Click to enlarge.

The organized investigation of suspicious behaviors has evolved in two directions. One is in the case of detective work, dealing with activities that endanger individual citizens. The other, integrally linked avenue is in intelligence, investigating threats to the state.

Flowing out of the same font, the modern incarnation of these entwined investigative avenues are largely the creation of two people.

In Europe, Eugene-Francois Vidocq may be considered the godfather of the former criminal turned secret agent who is largely responsible for the development of the modern, entwined arts of intelligence-gathering and criminal investigation. But stateside, his parallel, no less influential, was Lincoln’s spy master during the Civil War, Allan Pinkerton.

Born to an impoverished family in Glasgow in 1819... more

Takeaway: Don't Spy on Your Girlfriend's Affair

MI - A 43-year-old man was shot Friday while spying on a woman as she had an affair on Detroit's west side, police said. The man was spying on the 28-year-old woman around 2:20 a.m. in the 12000 block of Winthrop Street when she got caught having an affair, according to officials.

Police said when the man tapped on the window, the woman opened the window and fired shots. The man was shot in the arm, police said. He drove himself about two miles to the 8500 block of Lauder Street, where he called police. more

Economic Espionage: Web of Brain Sucking Spiders

For Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, USA, commanding general, U.S. Army Cyber Command, one important perspective “is that our adversaries are antagonists,” he said. “Their capabilities are ever increasing.”

At first it was exploitation of data, then disruption and after that destruction. Before it was attacks on networks or a series of networks, now it also is data and critical infrastructure and key resources.

"I think that we are starting to see the trailers [preview] of the future war," Gen. Nakasone warned. Actors that the United States has not thought of, non-nation states, anonymous, proxy adversaries, will have an impact as antagonists against countries, the general predicted. They are not only going after military networks, they are going after the economic might of that nation. “They are going after the key terrain that they know is fundamental to how a country operates.” more

Suspended Sentence for Swiss Spy Snooping

Rarely has a spy case attracted as much attention in Germany as that of Daniel M. The bungling double agent passed on troves of bank data to German tax officials while allegedly gathering info on them for the Swiss.

A German court has handed a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months to the former Zurich police detective for spying on the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia's (NRW) tax authority and some of its staff for nearly four years up to February 2015.

The regional court in Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt, also slapped a fine of €25,000 ($29,000) on the 54-year-old Swiss double agent. more