Signal Users - Time to Patch

A security flaw in the privacy-focused encrypted messaging service Signal could enable a threat actor to listen to the audio stream recorded by the Android device of another Signal user, without their knowledge...

The attack does not work with Signal video calls.

The issue was discovered last month by a researcher with Google Project Zero. Signal has already released a patch. more

GPS Cyberstalking of Girlfriend Brings Indictment for Alleged Mobster

20 supposed wiseguys charged because one was possessive...

Joseph Amato's attempt to surveil his girlfriend by attaching a hidden GPS device to her car led authorities to surveil the alleged mobster, and ultimately to his indictment by a grand jury...

"In November 2016, a GPS tracking device was found on an MTA bus in Staten Island during a routine maintenance inspection: it had been hidden in an oil pan," the government's detention memo states. "In fact, Joseph Amato had purchased the device to place a girlfriend, identified herein as Jane Doe, under close surveillance and used the tracking device in an attempt to maintain control over her."...

...after Jane Doe discovered the GPS tracker on her car and removed it. The detention memo suggests she placed it on an MTA bus to thwart Amato's surveillance. more

Women Snooping on Boyfriends Help Topple Dictator Instead

It all started in 2015 with a frantic message from a woman in Sudan who was having cold feet ten days before her wedding. The woman had a nagging feeling her husband-to-be was cheating on her, and she was desperate to find out the truth before she went through with the marriage.

She decided to reach out to her friend Rania Omer, who had won a lottery visa to become a U.S. citizen five years earlier.

Now Omer was 24 and studying at a college in Nebraska, but she still fancied herself an anti-matchmaker among her close-knit community back home in Khartoum. The friend wanted Omer’s help. Would she mind posting a photo of the potential husband to Facebook to see if other women could dig up information on him?

A few hours later, Omer had her answer: one commenter posted to say she was his wife. more

Dissinformation as a Service (DaaS)

While disinformation campaigns are often associated with governments, new research indicates there is a robust, easy-to-navigate market for anyone looking to buy their own propaganda arms.

It is “alarmingly simple and inexpensive” to launch a sophisticated disinformation campaign, analysts from threat-intelligence company Recorded Future concluded after studying the issue. “Disinformation services are highly customizable in scope, costing anywhere from several hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more depending on the client’s needs.”...

“If the ease of this experience is any indication, we predict that disinformation-as-a-service will soon spread from a nation-state tool to one increasingly used by individuals and organizations,” the Recorded Future analysts said. more

As Technical Information Security Consultants, this caught our attention. 

The best disinformation always adds in some correct information. The sum is verisimilitude, the ring of truth. 

So, where will the best correct information come from? Inside, of course.

Another very good reason to conduct regularly scheduled Technical Information Security surveys at your organization.

U.S. Tour Guide Accused as Spy for China's Security Service

Watch Surveillance Video of Alleged Spy’s ‘Dead Drop’ at Hotel 

The U.S. arrested a California man accused of spying for China’s security service while working as a tour guide in the San Francisco area. U.S. agents secretly monitored drop-offs of packages at a hotel in Newark, California, that were traced to Peng, according to the complaint.

China’s Ministry of State Security schemed “to use an American citizen to remove classified security information to the PRC,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a press conference.

Peng’s activities for the company where he worked, U.S. Tour and Travel, “went far beyond innocent sight-seeing,” Anderson said. more

Husband Ordered to Pay Almost $500K After Bugging Wife’s iPhone

The chairman of a performing arts school in Brooklyn has to pay an almost $500,000 verdict after he installed spying software in his estranged tobacco-heiress wife’s iPhone...

Jurors ordered Crocker Coulson, Brooklyn Music School chairman, to pay Anne Resnik $200,000 in compensatory damages, $200,000 in punitive damages, and $41,500 in statutory damages—or $100 for each of the 415 days he accessed her phone between 2012 and 2014.

Coulson was also ordered to pay $10,000 to Resnik’s mom, sister, and psychiatrist because he also intercepted their communications by spying on his wife. more

Credit Suisse’s C.O.O. Quits Over a Spying Scandal

Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee, who worked as the CEO’s chief lieutenant at three companies for more than 10 years, stepped down after ordering detectives to shadow former wealth-management head Iqbal Khan to ensure he didn’t poach clients and brokers for his new post at UBS Group AG. The bank said that he acted alone...

Chairman Urs Rohner is seeking to contain a scandal that erupted in Swiss tabloids a week ago and escalated into a threat for the bank’s top leadership after a confrontation in downtown Zurich between Khan and the private detectives sent to spy on him.

Events took on an even more dramatic turn just before the bank’s announcement, when it emerged that a contractor hired by the bank to recruit the investigative agency took his own life. more

Uber’s Next Big Safety Feature... Eavesdropping

Uber users have raised their share safety concerns with the company, and now it seems that a new feature that could help allay some of those concerns is on the way.  

Uber is apparently testing a feature that will allow riders to record audio through the app when they feel unsafe during a ride.

There are a lot of details we don’t know about this feature yet, as Uber hasn’t said anything official about it. more

Legit-Looking iPhone Cable That Hacks

Soon it may be easier to get your hands on a cable that looks just like a legitimate Apple lightning cable, but which actually lets you remotely take over a computer. The security researcher behind the recently developed tool announced over the weekend that the cable has been successfully made in a factory...
 

MG is the creator of the O.MG Cable. It charges phones and transfers data in the same way an Apple cable does, but it also contains a wireless hotspot that a hacker can connect to. Once they've done that, a hacker can run commands on the computer, potentially rummaging through a victim's files, for instance. more - background

GPS Tracker Bugs Kids... about 600,000 of them.

Serious security flaws in GPS trackers manufactured by a Chinese company have been found to expose location data of nearly 600,000 children and elderly, according to researchers from cybersecurity firm Avast.

T8 Mini GPS Tracker Locator

The researchers spotted the vulnerabilities in the T8 Mini GPS tracker and nearly 30 other models by the same manufacturer, Shenzhen i365 Tech.

...these devices expose all data sent to the Cloud, including exact real-time GPS coordinates, showed the findings revealed last week.

Further, design flaws can enable unwanted third-parties to spoof the location or access the microphone for eavesdropping.

The researchers estimate that there are about 600,000 of these unprotected trackers in use globally that are using the very generic default password of "123456". more

FutureWatch - Non-Public 5G Networks - Network Security via Isolation

The concept of non-public networks is nothing new -- yet the rise of the internet of things (IoT) and connected assets is driving more and more companies to investigate the opportunities that non-public 5G networks could offer them...  

Non-public 5G networks offer protection against industrial espionage. Data in non-public 5G networks is segregated and processed separately from public 5G networks. This ensures complete privacy protection of process -- and production-related data. more

This Week in Spy News

DC - In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government... more

Netflix - Though hampered by a few hiccups and low-hanging cliches, Netflix's new miniseries The Spy is also awesomely anchored by an astounding dramatic performance by Sacha Baron Cohen. more

FL - The trial of alleged Mar-a-Lago intruder and supposed Chinese “spy” Yujing Zhang started with a bout of the bizarre that has become typical of the case, briefly delaying proceedings. more
Switzerland - Russian spies have been operating in Switzerland under assumed identities, using documents that change their nationalities, a former KGB agent has told Swiss public television RTS. more

S. Korea - A former prisoner in North Korea has told German media that he used to spy for the CIA, seeking out nuclear secrets and taking pictures with a concealed wristwatch camera. more

DC - A former CIA officer who says she spent years under deep cover has written what appears to be one of the most revealing memoirs ever put to paper by an American intelligence operative — a book so intriguing that Apple bought the television rights even before its October publication date. Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, by Amaryllis Fox more

DC - Valerie Plame isn’t a spy anymore, but she plays one in her latest campaign ad, which looks more like the trailer for a movie about Jason Bourne’s aunt than the start of a congressional run. more


Book Review - Spying: Assessing US Domestic Intelligence Since 9/11 by Darren E. Tromblay.
This book is a welcome addition to the rather small literature on domestic and homeland intelligence in the United States. It will interest more than just intelligence specialists, because Tromblay addresses broader homeland security issues, focusing especially on the FBI and DHS, and the book would serve as a useful introduction to those agencies. more

Last Month in Spycam News

OH - The 27-year-old manager of Hamad Tire was charged with public indecency and voyeurism... Police... found videos on (his) cellular device "that depicted the secret and surreptitious recording of females using the toilet at the business." (and) discovered a vent had been accessed beneath the HVAC unit that provided hidden access to the female's bathroom without the knowledge of the bathroom's users. more

UK - Victims of a pervert doctor, who was jailed for voyeurism after taking thousands of images of female patients, are seeking compensation. more

TX - Lee Choon Ping has pleaded guilty to video voyeurism after he was caught planting a hidden camera in the toilet of a United Airlines flight... Authorities had identified Lee after comparing surveillance videos to the clips contained in the planted camera. more

Canada - A high school teacher convicted by Canada's top court of voyeurism for secretly video recording female students with a pen camera has been handed a six-month jail term. more

UT - A North Ogden man is being charged with voyeurism after officials allegedly found more than 110 videos of an undressed teenage girl on his computer... the defendant had put a camera in a bathroom and recorded a female juvenile... “Furthermore, the defendant was identified in some of the images while setting up the camera.” more

CT - Detective Lt. Mark Williams says in the past year, Danbury police have responded to four voyeurism incidents in local stores and to one dorm situation involving a student in the shower. more

Canada - A Kelowna man has been arrested after RCMP were called to a local business regarding a possible voyeurism offence... an individual located what they believed to be a small hidden camera in the staff washroom of Summerhill Pyramid Winery... the staff member has been terminated and all other bathrooms, staff and public, have been swept. more

FL - The discovery of a bathroom spy camera led to the arrest of a Gainesville talent manager... a person was in a bathroom with his girlfriend when he noticed a clock that looked like a hidden camera... Shortly after discovering the spy camera, the person who uncovered the camera got an unprompted call from Howard Louis Anderson Jr., 38, trying to explain why he placed the camera there. more 

UK - A physiotherapist placed hidden cameras in bathrooms to secretly film a teenage girl while she got undressed and showered. Andrew Weinzettel, 52, also admitted he secretly filmed another female patient at a physiotherapy clinic in Greenfield Park in Sydney's west... he placed a covert camera disguised as a clothes hook at the clinic, which had a swimming pool for patients. more

TN - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has removed a Utah church official after he was charged with taking photos of a woman undressing in a Tennessee clothing store. more

ID - A 30-year-old Burley man is facing several charges including video voyeurism... According to the charges, the victim family called investigators when they discovered wiring in their basement that went up under a bathroom sink outlet that had a wireless camera attached to it with the lenses installed under the counter top facing the shower. more

SC -Officers were called to La Bamba Mexican Restaurant on South Woody Jones Boulevard (stop snickering) for a voyeurism incident. Police learned that a customer went into the restroom and found a cellphone concealed in the restroom and recording video. more

OH - A former Maumee real estate agent was sentenced to serve six months ... for placing a recording device inside a bathroom and hallway of his Maumee residence — which captured recordings of a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old who lived in the home. more

 TX - A man accused of planting a recording device in a neighbor’s bathroom had 20 terabytes of data, more than 1 million images and multiple victims... the device was determined to be a Phylink brand covert wireless camera. They said this brand of camera is capable of capturing video, audio and can be accessed through a local network. more

FL - Man hid camera in smoke detector... in a room that he only rented out to women; pleads guilty to video voyeurism. more

AR - A convenience store employee found a hidden cellular telephone with the video camera activated beneath and behind the toilet of the restroom. The camera recorded the suspect as he positioned and re-positioned the camera several times. more

UK - A pervert put his mobile phone in a toilet and recorded women in a cubicle inside.

Thomas Stephens recorded himself setting up the camera in the unisex toilet in East Grinstead. more

Canada - A Guelph doctor is facing possible disciplinary action from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario... a hidden camera was allegedly found in a staff washroom at his practice in Mississauga.  more

LA - A New Orleans man faces more than a decade in prison after his conviction for hiding a camera in a bathroom and capturing video of a 16-year-old girl showering. more

KY - A landlord for a Louisville condominium is facing voyeurism charges after a camera was found hidden in a tenant's vent... she discovered a camera hidden in the vent above her bed. Police identified the man in the video as the woman's employer and landlord. more

AZ - A Glendale man was arrested for the second time for allegedly planting a video recording device in a bathroom, this time at a mall ice cream shop. more

VT - A Kimpton Taconic Hotel employee found a cell phone in the corner of a restroom in the hotel's basement level, which is accessible only to employees, according to a police affidavit. more

DC - FBI employee charged with voyeurism after allegedly placing camera under woman's desk...  the woman said she was sitting at her desk, when she switched the position of her legs, and she hit the camera and caused it to hit the ground. more

UK - Police are investigating a second alleged Peeping Tom spying on women on the set of the new James Bond movie. A 49-year-old man was arrested back in June and charged with voyeurism after a recording device was found in a women’s toilet at Pinewood Studios. more

Had enough? Want to protect your restrooms, avoid embarrassing publicity and costly lawsuits? Check out... Spycam Detection in Workplace Expectation of Privacy Areas — Conduct professional forensic investigations to detect covert spy cameras and create a Recording in the Workplace policy.

The Credit Card that Pays for Itself

Confidential Conference Planning

• You can say no cell phones allowed in the meeting.
  
• You can prohibit brief cases and backpacks.
  
• You can scan participants for surveillance devices.

But, you probably won't think about having them leave their wallets outside the door, or checking the books on the shelf.


We would. This is just one of the many things we think about at Murray Associates.

Protecting Your Engineering Business from Industrial Espionage

Industrial espionage is a much more common occurrence than many people realize. 

As a business grows and begins to compete at a higher level, the stakes grow and their corporate secrets become more valuable. It isn’t just other businesses that might want this information, hackers who think they can sell the information will also be sniffing about.

Even if you can’t eliminate the risk entirely, there are certain things you can do to reduce the risk of a security breach in your business. more

A Very Short List...

• Shred Documents

• Don’t Print Sensitive Information if You Don’t Have to

• Keep Your Schematics (designs, strategies, etc.) Under Wraps

• Keep it Need to Know

and my favorite... 

• Be Proactive - Look for Leaks

Because...
If you don't look,
you may never know.