Security Director Alert: Mirai Botnet Targets Corporate Presentation Systems

A new variant of the crushing Mirai botnet, which specifically places enterprises in its crosshairs, has been discovered by security researchers...

Click to enlarge.

Mirai is still a botnet designed to exploit IoT devices, but in its latest iteration it seeks out vulnerable business devices - specifically, wireless presentation systems and the TVs used to present to rooms full of clients, partners and colleagues. 

"This new Mirai is a perfect example of why every organisation needs to map their own networks from an external point of view and close off everything that is open and does not need to be," said Jamo Niemela, principal researcher at F-secure. "The types of new devices that Mirai attacks have no business of being visible to the Internet."

The WePresent WiPG-1000 wireless presentation system and the LG Supersign TV were the two devices singled-out by researchers as most vulnerable to the attack. more

In addition to checking for electronic eavesdropping devices and general information security loopholes, make sure your TSCM technicians examine IoT device settings.

Keep Your Number Private – And Still Receive Calls!

An inexpensive and easy service...

"Keep your real phone number hidden while making calls and sending texts for work, dating, Craigslist sales, and more thanks to Hushed. You'll use their simple and secure app to easily make calls on your second number (you'll even choose the area code) without committing to another long, expensive phone contract. Customize your voicemail and use Wi-Fi or data to talk without expensive service charges. It's true communication anonymity delivered." more

Bonus: 

• The Murray Associates Smartphone Security Tips
• How to Block Caller ID

The Tasmanians Have a Great Sense of Humor

Sign on hotel wall at Hobart Airport...

Ten Years of Bugging a Woman's Home Brings... a misconduct hearing?!?!

UK - A serving South Yorkshire police officer will face a misconduct hearing after being accused of bugging a woman’s home to listen in on her private conversations.

PC Christopher Birkett is accused of placing covert listening devices in a woman’s home on ‘various dates’ between March 2007 and August 2017 to listen in on her conversations.

It is alleged that on some of the occasions, PC Birkett was on duty at the time. more

Facebook - Also Concerned About Their Privacy

Nick Lovrien, the tech behemoth's chief global security officer, said in an interview...

"We work to protect intellectual property in many ways, and that's everything from making sure [employees'] computer screens on airplanes are covered so people don't accidentally share information they're not supposed to, to accidentally leaving things on the printers ... to white boards being cleaned at night," Lovrien said, adding that Facebook has additional systems in place "that identify if people are inappropriately accessing information they shouldn't have."

That's not just a theoretical risk. In the last six months, two Chinese Apple employees working on the company's secretive self-driving car project have been charged with stealing the iPhone maker's trade secrets...

Business Insider has spoken with numerous current and former employees and reviewed internal documents for an in-depth investigation into how Facebook handles its corporate security.

Sources described a hidden world of stalkers, stolen prototypes, state-sponsored espionage concerns, secret armed guards, car-bomb concerns, and more. Today, there are a staggering 6,000 people in Facebook's global security organization, working to safeguard the company's 80,000-strong workforce of employees and contractors around the world. more

The Case of The Handyman Cam

A Kentucky man accused of installing a video camera in a family’s bathroom is now facing additional felony charges...41-year-old Ryan C. Lloyd was charged with video voyeurism...

Police say a family hired Lloyd to fix a light fixture. A few days later, the family discovered a camera with an SD card had been wired to the light fixture. Police found 87 recordings on the card, including two images of a naked juvenile and images of two partially nude adults. more

FutureWatch: Stingrays May Be Stung by Apple Cell Phone Patent

Apple has filed a patent application on a new method of encryption, which complicates obtaining of confidential information.

The patent describes a technology that will not allow any device to keep track of the IMSI (international mobile subscriber identifier)...

Innovation may interfere with the use of Stingray devices, which act as masts for mobile phones. These devices can track the location of users or even to listen to personal calls. They are also sometimes called IMSI catchers. more

FutureWatch: Cheaper Infrared Cameras

A new breakthrough by scientists with the University of Chicago, however, may one day lead to much more cost-effective infrared cameras—which in turn could enable infrared cameras for common consumer electronics like phones, as well as sensors to help autonomous cars see their surroundings more accurately.

They tweaked the quantum dots so that they had a formula to detect short-wave infrared and one for mid-wave infrared. Then they laid both together on top of a silicon wafer.

The resulting camera performs extremely well and is much easier to produce. "It's a very simple process," Tang said. "You take a beaker, inject a solution, inject a second solution, wait five to 10 minutes, and you have a new solution that can be easily fabricated into a functional device." more

The New 'Cone of Silence', or The Death of Acoustical Ducting

Boston University researchers, Xin Zhang, a professor at the College of Engineering, and Reza Ghaffarivardavagh, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, released a paper in Physical Review B demonstrating it's possible to silence noise using an open, ringlike structure, created to mathematically perfect specifications, for cutting out sounds while maintaining airflow.

"Today's sound barriers are literally thick heavy walls," says Ghaffarivardavagh. ...they are a clunky approach not well suited to situations where airflow is also critical...

They calculated the dimensions and specifications that the metamaterial would need to have in order to interfere with the transmitted sound waves, preventing sound—but not air—from being radiated through the open structure. The basic premise is that the metamaterial needs to be shaped in such a way that it sends incoming sounds back to where they came from, they say.

As a test case, they decided to create a structure that could silence sound from a loudspeaker. Based on their calculations, they modeled the physical dimensions that would most effectively silence noises... The metamaterial, ringing around the internal perimeter of the pipe's mouth, worked like a mute button. more

Corporate Security: Will Your "Secret" Status Hold Up in Court?

via Epstein Becker Green - Peter A. Steinmeyer
A federal judge in Chicago recently taught a painful lesson to an Illinois employer: even if information is sufficiently sensitive and valuable that it could qualify as a “trade secret,” it won’t unless the owner of the information took adequate steps to protect its secrecy. 

This doesn't qualify.

In a thorough opinion issued in the case, Abrasic 90 Inc., d/b/a CGW Camel Grinding Wheels, USA v. Weldcote Metals, Inc., Joseph O’Mera and Colleen Cervencik, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. of the Northern District of Illinois explained that “there are two basic elements to the analysis” of whether information qualifies as a “trade secret”:

(1) the information “must have been sufficiently secret to impart economic value because of its relative secrecy” and

(2) the owner “must have made reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy of the information.” more

Contact a Technical Information Security Consultant if you are unsure about the "reasonable efforts" you should be taking.

FutureWatch: Invisible-Light-Powered Eavesdropping Devices

Wi-Charge uses safe infrared light to deliver power from a distance. Our products provide enough power to charge a phone across a room, to power smart devices and enable new experiences. With Wi-Charge, mobile and IoT devices appear to charge autonomously. New applications open for homes, offices, factories and public spaces.

Battery-powered devices are portable, but battery capacity limits functionality and the need to replace batteries degrades the user experience. Moving wired devices, routing or hiding the power cords is a pain. Wi-Charge delivers 100x the power budget of battery solutions. With Wi-Charge, you can have the convenience of wire-free portability with a power budget approaching to a wired solution. more

Lots of good uses, and possibly some evil ones. 
Thanks to another Canadian Blue Blaze Irregular for spotting this one!

Electronic Footprint Army Boots Discovered

Hamas-run security forces at the Kerem Shalom crossing in the Gaza Strip have seized a shipment of army boots outfitted with tracking devices, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu reported on Saturday, citing a security source in the coastal enclave.

Hamas security forces were carrying out “a precise inspection of the tracking devices in order to… understand how they work,” the security source said. more

Looks like the same technology as shoplifting tags and card-keys. Clever.

Thanks to our Canadian Blue Blaze irregular for spotting this one!

Book - JUDGEMENT by Joe Finder - Fast-Paced Thriller with Technical Surveillance Overtones

Just Released

JUDGEMENT by Joe Finder
Excerpt...
"It was nothing more than a one-night stand. Juliana Brody, a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, is rumored to be in consideration for the federal circuit, maybe someday the highest court in the land.

At a conference in a Chicago hotel, she meets a gentle, vulnerable man and has an unforgettable night with him—something she’d never done before. They part with an explicit understanding that this must never happen again.

But back home in Boston, Juliana realizes that this was no random encounter. The man from Chicago proves to have an integral role in a case she's presiding over—a sex-discrimination case that's received national attention. Juliana discovers that she's been entrapped, her night of infidelity captured on video.

Strings are being pulled in high places, a terrifying unfolding conspiracy that will turn her life upside down. But soon it becomes clear that personal humiliation, even the possible destruction of her career, are the least of her concerns, as her own life and the lives of her family are put in mortal jeopardy.

In the end, turning the tables on her adversaries will require her to be as ruthless as they are..."

Inside Information: Several Technical Surveillance Countermeasures practitioners (including myself) were consulted for plot twists and technical realism. New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder does this kind of homework on all his novels. ~Kevin
more

Ultrasonic Microphone Jammers — Do They Really Work?

It’s a question I get asked occasionally when one of our clients sees one of these devices being advertised on the internet.

Who can blame them for asking? The ads claim they can stop microphones from working properly. Instant privacy from electronic eavesdroppers, and anyone who is attempting to record your conversations.

Finally, Kryptonite for microphones!?!? Wow, how does that work?

The ultrasonic microphone jammer explanation is really simple... more

FutureWatch: Smartphone Comes with Optical Spy Pen

Click to enlarge.

Electronic pen device having optical zoom – Patent # US 10,198,649 – Feb. 5, 2019

Abstract

The electric pen device includes an optical system including a lens and an image sensor configured to convert an image signal of light that has passed through the optical system to an electrical signal. The electric pen device includes a control board configured to interact with an electronic device and a communication module configured to communicate by wire or wirelessly with the electronic device, so that an image or a picture taken by a camera is confirmed and an optical zoom is controlled from the external electronic device. more

FutureWatch spy implications: Phone may be concealed in the pocket, backpack, or nearby desk drawer. Take high quality photos by aiming the top of the pen, pressing a button, and automatically transmitting the photo back to the phone. Pretty covert. No word about it transmitting audio, yet. Leaving phones outside of the conference room won't be enough. You'll have to check the pens, too. 

Need a spy pen camera you can actually buy today, or worry about being used to steal your secrets? Check here. ~Kevin

Thanks to our sharp-eyed Blue Blaze Irregular in the shadows of Pennsylvania for this.