Spy vs. Spy - The Movie

The Spy vs. Spy comic strip has been a regular fixture in Mad magazine for almost sixty years. In that time, the two identical birdlike espionage agents — Black Spy and White Spy — have also featured in video games and cartoons, but a live-action big-screen adaptation has continually eluded the warring duo. However, that could all finally change, if new developments go according to plan.

According to Collider, Rawson Marshall Thurber is in talks to direct the movie for Warner Bros. and Imagine Entertainment. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are on board as producers, which makes sense as they’ve been attached to the project since its inception. It remains to be seen if Dwayne Johnson will star, but that wouldn’t be surprising as he’s Thurber’s go-to guy...

The movie, as silly as it will undoubtedly be, might also be very smart and biting. The original comics are rife with political satire, often taking aim at America’s involvement in wars. Given that there’s still plenty of real-life drama to comment on, don’t be surprised if the movie pokes fun at current affairs...

If the film lives up to its potential, Spy vs. Spy will be one entertaining, wacky ride. more

Spycam Detection Course | Now With Korean Closed Captions

The highly rated Spycam Detection video training course now has Korean closed captions, as well as English. Spanish is coming soon.

The demand for a Korean translation was fueled by their epidemic spy camera problem. They even have a special word for it, Molka. The problem is so bad the government created special inspection squads and a safety handbook for the public.

In other countries the problem is also epidemic.

This one-hour, self-paced course was originally created for businesses and other organizations to train their security and facilities employees. Having these people conduct periodic inspections reduces risk and legal exposure. A Certificate-of-Completion is awarded at the end.

The training is also beneficial for police, private investigators and executive protection professionals.

Personal protection is the most effective prevention. Knowing what to look for is important. The course is open to everyone. Any individual with a little knowledge can conduct their own inspections of:

• hotel rooms,
• public restroom,
• store changing rooms,
• locker rooms,
• vacation rentals,
• and their own domiciles.

Please forward this post to anyone it can help.
As more people become knowledgeable, fewer people will become victims.

Eavesdropper Scams Financial Advisor | Prevention Tips

Early in April, a financial advisor and her team met with an insurance company wholesaler via the video conferencing platform Zoom.

Unbeknownst to them, another participant had joined the virtual meeting.

As the hacker captured details, the wholesaler named the price of a new policy and the advisor agreed to the terms.

...It’s likely that even before the meeting ended the eavesdropper generated an email to the advisor so that it appeared to come from the insurer. In a later forensic analysis, an overlooked detail revealed the spoof: a single letter the hacker changed in the insurance company’s name.

After the meeting ended, the advisor received the message with instructions to wire money — in the low six figures — to a New York bank account. She did as instructed, sending the money to the hacker. more

———How to prevent Zoombombing in your video chats in 4 easy steps———

1. Don't use your Personal Meeting ID for the meeting. Instead, use a per-meeting ID, exclusive to a single meeting. Zoom's support page offers a video walk-through on how to generate a random meeting ID for extra security.

2. Enable the "Waiting Room" feature so that you can see who is attempting to join the meeting before allowing them access. Like many other privacy functions, a skillful disrupter can sometimes bypass this control, but it helps to put another hurdle in their route to chaos.

Zoom offers a support article here as well. To enable the Waiting Room feature, go to Account Management > Account Settings. Click on Meeting, then click Waiting Room to enable the setting.

3. Disable other options, including the ability for others to Join Before Host (it should be disabled by default, but check to be sure -- see below). Then disable screen-sharing for nonhosts, and also the remote control function. Finally, disable all file transferring, annotations and the autosave feature for chats...

4. Once the meeting begins and everyone is in, lock the meeting to outsiders ... and assign at least two meeting co-hosts. The co-hosts will be able to help control the situation in case anyone bypasses your efforts and gets into the meeting. more

Robot 'Spy' Gorilla Records Wild Gorillas Singing and Farting

This is the first time that singing mountain gorillas have been caught on camera.

(Image: © Copyright John Downer Productions)

Mountain gorillas have been caught on camera as they "sing" during their supper, a behavior that has never before been documented on video. Filmmakers captured the astonishing footage of the primate crooners with a little help from a very special camera: a robotic "spy" designed to look like a young gorilla.

The singing apes make their television debut on April 29 in the returning PBS series, "Nature: Spy in the Wild 2."

Like its predecessor, which first aired in 2017, the program documents remarkable up-close glimpses of elusive wildlife behavior, seen through the "eyes" of robots that are uncanny lookalikes of the creatures that they film. more  sing-a-long

'Zoom-bombed' | Salary Cuts Call Eavesdropped on by Rival Company

Staff at national news outlet The Independent were on a ‘confidential and sensitive video’ Zoom call to learn about salary cuts and furloughs when it was ‘zoom-bombed’ by an employee from a rival media organisation. more

Mark Di Stefano, a reporter with the Financial Times, allegedly entered meetings held over the video conferencing app by the Independent and the Evening Standard.

Stefano, according to the Independent, brazenly joined the meeting by using his work email address. This caused Stefano’s name to appear on the call, although his camera remained disabled.

The journalist reportedly joined for 16 seconds before logging out but returned soon after by logging in with his phone number.

Not long after the call, Stefano sent out a series of tweets describing topics that the Independent says were discussed during the staff meeting.

Stefano described information on everything from pay cuts to the outlet’s issues with falling ad revenue. more

Related News...
DHS Reportedly Concerned Zoom May be Vulnerable to Foreign Spies 
The feds are concerned that Zoom’s security flaws could make the popular videoconferencing platform vulnerable to foreign spies, a new report says.

An intelligence analysis from the Department of Homeland Security found that Zoom’s explosive growth and its well-known security problems make it a “target-rich environment” for government spy services and other hackers, ABC News reported Tuesday.

“Any organization currently using — or considering using — Zoom should evaluate the risk of its use,” the department warned in the analysis, which was reportedly distributed to law enforcement agencies around the US. more
...and much more.

"What's in a Name?

...That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Spies Keep Sneaking Malware Into Google Play

Google's Play Store for Android apps has never had a reputation for the strictest protections from malware. Shady adware and even banking trojans have managed over the years to repeatedly defy Google's security checks.

Now security researchers have found what appears to be a more rare form of Android abuse: state-sponsored spies who repeatedly slipped their targeted hacking tools into the Play Store and onto victims' phones.

At a remote virtual version of its annual Security Analyst Summit, researchers from the Russian security firm Kaspersky today plan to present research about a hacking campaign they call PhantomLance, in which spies hid malware in the Play Store...

Once Kaspersky had identified the PhantomLance apps, its researchers were able to match their code with older malware used by OceanLotus, which has been active since at least 2013. more

New Spy Podcast

Fresh from playing Peggy Carter in the Marvel Universe, and now preparing for Mission: Impossible 7, Hayley Atwell gets CIA, KGB & Mossad operatives to share their inside stories of real spy missions.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

A Sad Case Highlights Perception of Privacy Loss and Mental Health

WA - A suicidal man who was shot and killed by police officers at a Loves truck stop in Ritzville called police twice to report that his car was bugged and that he was being tracked, according to a release by the Columbia Basin Investigative Team.  more

A Global Recession Will Fuel Cyber-Espionage

While the current pandemic crisis presents businesses with unprecedented economic challenges to their very existence, it has also created a tremendous level of cyber-risks. 

Heightened risks are present not only due to the significant numbers of individuals working from home, increasing the vulnerability landscape, but also because as states fall deeper into recessions, some may resort to cyber-espionage in an attempt to position better their post-pandemic political, economic, and industrial structures.

Regardless of the industry, the intellectual property (IP) of any organization is likely to be a precious target for foreign government-sponsored hackers...

Managing the crisis, in reality, can be much more complex and a nightmare for decision-makers. However, flexible, agile, and governments that are being flexible and adaptable while at the same time prioritizing their cybersecurity measures and counter-espionage efforts are more prone to survive the crisis as well as sustain domestic business operations with minimal loss. more

This Week in Spycam News

UVM Medical Center Doctor Hid Camera in Staff Bathroom
The emergency department doctor and assistant professor is facing several voyeurism charges after hospital security discovered the hidden camera. more

Man faces felony accusation of viewing girl through camera in alarm clock...
When interviewed by police, the girl said she knew the camera was there because of a "dot" on the front of the clock and that camera's presence made her "uncomfortable" and "creeped out." On Valentine's Day, the girl placed a series of heart-shaped stickers on the clock to decorate it, while also blocking the camera's view. more

Former head golf professional classified as Tier I sex offender...
Mohawk Golf & Country Club’s former head golf professional who was charged after a recording device was found in a women’s locker room was classified as a Tier I sex offender today. more

IR Eye of Ra, or The Drone Patrol

Police in Westport, Connecticut, announced this week that they’re testing a so-called “pandemic drone” that can detect when people on the ground have fevers.

The new drone platform will also be used to determine when people are closer than six feet to each other. Police will be able to deliver a verbal warning through the drone’s speaker to anyone not practicing social distancing.



The new drone technology was developed by a company called Draganfly Inc., which has been around since the late 1990s, and uses Westport PD’s existing quadcopter drones with Draganfly’s software. Draganfly worked with a deep-learning company called Vital Intelligence Inc. and researchers from the University of South Australia to develop the new tech, according to a press release. more

What 007 is Doing These Days

British Spy Unit Kills 2,000 COVID-19 Scams In Just One Month

Across the world, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are waging a different kind of war on COVID-19, one taking on scammers who’re exploiting fear around the coronavirus.

In the U.K., an arm of the GCHQ intelligence agency, has spent the last month wiping COVID-19 crooks from the web, with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) announcing Monday that it had taken down more than 2,000 scams in a single month. more

Some Landlords Illegally Spying On Tenants’ Stimulus Check Status

While millions are awaiting their payments to help with necessities, landlords are also eager for their tenants to receive stimulus checks, so they can pay rent. Unfortunately, some landlords have not just been waiting patiently...

In order to help Americans to track the status of their stimulus payments, the IRS and Treasury Department launched a new tool, Get My Payment. The tool provides individuals “with the status of your payment, including the date your payment is scheduled to be deposited into your bank account or mailed.”...

In order to check the status of a stimulus payment, one only needs to provide basic information, including name, date of birth, street address, and Social Security Number (SSN) ... This basic information is readily available on the dark web ... it is also readily available to many landlords through the applications that tenants complete when applying to rent a property.

You may want to speak with a lawyer to evaluate options if your landlord checks your payment status on the IRS portal. You may also want to consider filing a police report. more

7 Espionage Tricks to Avoid While Working From Home

Don't get tricked into giving away personal information. 
Why? Because this is what you use for your passwords.

1. Facebook Quizzes
   Quizzes are all over Facebook:  What does your eye color say about you? What kind of dog are you according to your zodiac sign? (Facebook says these were questions the criminals used.)


2. 10 Things About You
   As people try to connect during the stay-at-home order, they are answering cut-and-paste questionnaires from their friends. They usually start with something like “Tell me 10 things I don’t know about you” and go on to ask questions like: Who was your first love? ... Here's the problem: those are the exact same questions asked when you forget your password. So, be wary of posting the answers on social media.
   
   
3. Posting Information about Your Passwords
   People are posting all sorts of information about what’s going on at their homes with their children or with their pets. That’s fine, unless they use those same names as their passwords.


4. Photos of the Home Work Station
   At this point, people are pretty proud of their work from home stations. They have a new webcam, a makeshift desk, and maybe even a good microphone. But posting photos of that home work station might give criminals too much information. Can someone see the screen from a window? Are they giving away the brands and models of their IoT devices (which might or might not have exploitable vulnerabilities)?


5. Clicking Questionable Links
   There are a lot of questionable links on the internet. Users should be wary of sites they don’t recognize. While this is rudimentary advice, it’s a good reminder that the headline “New Pandemic Cure No One Is Talking About” likely leads to a malicious site.


6. Be Aware of What’s Public
   Savvy users have changed their Facebook and Instagram profile settings to make them more private. But as soon as you post to a group or comment on someone’s post without strong privacy settings, folks outside your friend's group can see what you’re doing. And, other sites like Twitter and Reddit are not generally private. more 

 Thanks to Jake Milstein, CI Security Inc. for compiling this list.