Coca-Cola Trade Secret Theft Underscores Importance of Early Detection

The trial of Xiaorong You is set to begin today, April 6, in Greenville, TN. She is accused of trade secret theft and economic espionage after allegedly stealing bisphenol-A-free (BPA-free) technologies owned by several companies, including her former employers Coca-Cola and Eastman Chemical Company. 

The value placed on the development of the stolen technologies is $119.6 million. Other affected companies include Azko-Nobel, Dow Chemical, PPG, TSI, Sherwin Williams and ToyoChem.

Two actions could have stopped the theft or lessened its impact:

• Real-time alerts and processes designed to prevent sensitive and protected data from exiting the corporate environment.
• Prohibiting personal and non-authorized electronic devices, including smartphones, from proximity to trade secrets or sensitive installations. 

Using the smartphone’s camera to copy documents and workspace is a throwback technique of espionage days of old, when miniature and subminiature cameras would be used to copy documents from within restricted spaces. more 

See Murray Associates - Recording in the Workplace Recommendations

Electric Aircraft Start-Up Accuses Rival of Stealing Its Secrets

The age of electric planes may still be years away, but the fight for that market is already heating up.

Wisk Aero, a start-up developing an electric aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane, on Tuesday sued another start-up, Archer Aviation, accusing it of stealing trade secrets and infringing on Wisk’s patents.

The lawsuit brings into public view a dispute between two little-known companies in a business that has become a playground for billionaires. It also entangles giants of aviation and technology. Wisk is a joint venture of Boeing and Kitty Hawk, which is financed by Larry Page, who co-founded Google. Archer’s investors include United Airlines, which is a major Boeing customer and plans to buy up to 200 aircraft from the start-up...

Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accuses two engineers of downloading thousands of files containing confidential designs and data before leaving Wisk to join Archer. Wisk accused a third engineer of wiping history of his activities from his computer before leaving for Archer. more

Spy History: KGB Spy in 1961 Used X-Ray to Crack U.S. Top-Secret Lock

In late 1961 [Robert Lee Johnson] received the top-secret clearance and was admitted into the vault as a clerk. At long last the KGB was in. […] Over the following weeks the infiltration began in earnest as he successfully copied the vault keys using clay molds supplied by KGB operatives. 

In October of 1961 he received a specially manufactured X-ray device from Moscow that he was instructed to place over the final lock in the vault; KGB technicians could then deduce what combination unlocked the vault by studying the cogs inside the locking mechanism...

On 15 December 1962, Johnson accessed the vault for the first time and looted its contents. The operation, extensively rehearsed beforehand, went exactly as planned and by 03:15 the following morning some of America’s most sensitive cryptographic and military information⁠—some of it classified higher than top secret⁠—was on its way to Moscow. more

Lawmakers: Fund Tech to Thwart Telco Spies

Lawmakers want Biden to fund technology they say could secure American telecommunications companies from spies.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging President Biden to include $3 billion in funding for technology it says would reduce American reliance on Chinese telecommunications equipment that could provide a back door for spying.

The money would go to funds established by Congress last year to encourage more American companies to switch over to Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) technology. The technology is essentially the software version of the hardware components needed to connect phones within 5G networks. more

Does 5G create new cybersecurity risks?

5G will be able to accept millions of devices per square kilometer on its network, which will allow it to adapt to ever-increasing nomadic uses, such as the autonomous car generalization or remote surgical operations via robots located on the other side of the planet. 

The real promise of 5G will come in September 2021, with the third phase of 5G specifications. These are the data centers located a few kilometers from each branch, which will allow operators to process massive amounts of data and set up new applications for businesses.

 

However, increasing the number of connected devices means that this technology will become a major security issue for governments, people and businesses around the world. Indeed, it also multiplies the entry points of attack for cyber criminals. more

IKEA France Accused of Spying on Employees – Call for Prison Sentence

In an ongoing court case, a prosecutor has demanded IKEA France be fined some €2 million - and for a prison sentence for a former CEO - with the company accused of spying on hundreds of employees.

After five days of the sometimes stormy trial, the Versailles prosecutor's office demanded an “exemplary” sentence be passed down, to send a “strong message” to “all commercial companies”."

The issue at stake in this trial is "the protection of our private lives in the face of a threat, that of mass surveillance", prosecutor Paméla Tabardel told the court.

Fifteen defendants took the stand during the case, including former Ikea France executives, shop managers, but also police officers and the head of a private investigation company. more

Privoro Launches Audio Masking Chamber & RF Shield for Mobile Devices

(Press release) 
Privoro, today revealed its latest product, Vault, a first-of-its-kind defense against remote data capture. The Vault case is a two-in-one portable Faraday enclosure and audio masking chamber for smartphones, providing unsurpassed protection against not only wireless attacks and location tracking but also eavesdropping and spying.

Vault eliminates smartphone signals more effectively than portable, fabric-based Faraday products, delivering a minimum of 100 dB of radio frequency (RF) attenuation – 10 billion times signal reduction. When a smartphone is placed in the Vault case, the smartphone can no longer be reached via cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, near-field communication (NFC) and radio-frequency identification (RFID).

In addition to RF shielding, Vault's user-controlled audio masking prevents the extraction of intelligible speech up to voice levels of 90 dBA through independent noise signals. Users will have the assurance that conversations in the vicinity of Vault cannot be deliberately captured by bad actors through the enclosed smartphone's cameras and microphones.

Privoro developed Vault to meet the requirements of nation-state customers seeking to tackle the long-standing unique and critical security risks that mobile devices pose. more

 

Criminal Group Accused of Wiretapping State Officals & Companies

The Sverdlovsk Region law enforcement officers apprehended several members of a criminal group over a case of illegal wiretapping of state officials and lawmakers...

"On March 30, police officers carried out a series of searches at residences of members of a criminal group as part of a case ‘on illegal wiretapping.’ The searches took place at 13 locations simultaneously. The wide-scale operation was triggered by an attempt of a key suspect to hide abroad. He was apprehended on March 27 during an attempt to cross the border with Kazakhstan," the source said.

According to the source, the wiretapping of city administration officials and city Duma deputies, as well as regional authorities and representatives of major companies took place in the fall of 2019. more

Spy-turned-TV Host Anna Chapman Urges Russians to Get Vaccinated

Anna Chapman, the Russian intelligence agent busted for spying in the Big Apple in 2010, has now taken on a new mission – persuading vaccine doubters in the Motherland to be jabbed against COVID-19.

The flamed-haired former femme fatale told viewers on REN TV that “the health of your loved ones depends on your decision.”

Chapman, who had been working in real estate in New York, made headlines in 2010 when she was revealed to be part of a Russian sleeper cell.

She was deported to Russia shortly after along with nine other spies as part of a massive prisoner swap and is now a TV presenter. more

Intel Sued Under Wiretapping Laws

FL - A class-action suit in Lake County, Florida, alleges that Intel unlawfully intercepted communications without user consent. The claim is backed by the usage of analytics technology on Intel’s company website. Intel capitalizes on session-replay software to capture the interactions of people visiting the corporate homepage, a violation of user rights.

According to the lawsuit, Intel is violating the Florida state wiretapping law by capturing keystrokes, mouse movements, and other similar session-replay tech. more

G. Gordon Liddy, convicted Watergate conspirator, dies at 90

G. Gordon Liddy, the political operative who supervised the Watergate burglary, which brought down President Richard Nixon, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 90.

Liddy's family said in a statement that he died Tuesday morning at his daughter's home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. It did not give a cause of death. His son, James, said that the cause was not related to Covid-19, and that he had been dealing with Parkinson's disease.

Liddy was one of the organizers of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the office building with the name that would forever be linked to one of the biggest political scandals in American history...

Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in 1973 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Years later, he declared, "I'd do it again for my president."...

In an interview with WHYY "Fresh Air" in 1980 after the publication of his autobiography, Liddy described unusual ways of overcoming fears as a child, including rats.

He went to the waterfront to confront the rats, but they would swim away. When his sister's cat killed a rat, he decided to eat it. "And so I cooked and consumed part of the rat. And thereafter, I had no fear of rats," Liddy said. more

Breaking: Billions of Online Trading Broker Records Have Been Leaked

Researchers at WizCase have discovered a massive data leak that belongs to FBS, a Cyprus-based online trading broker used by millions of traders in over 190 countries. 

The leak includes sensitive personally identifiable information (PII), financial information, government documents, numbers, and even passwords in plaintext form...

The consequences for the exposed individuals are grave, ranging from identity theft and banking fraud to scams, phishing, blackmailing, and even business espionage. The details that have been exposed are just too revealing, and mitigating the risks now is very complicated – if at all possible.

If you were using FBS, you should reset all your passwords, enable 2FA and monitor your bank account activity closely. more

Industrial Espionage Quote of the Week: Most In-Demand Career

"...companies are increasingly at risk from hacking and industrial espionage. Protecting data and defending corporate networks is poised to be one of the most in-demand careers of the future." — Doros Hadjizenonos, Regional sales manager at Fortinet  more

Iowa Passes New Electronic Surveillance Law

IA - New penalties for those found guilty of trespassing to set up electronic surveillance equipment on someone else's property to secretly capture images or video have passed in the House.  

Iowa legislators have been trying to enhance trespassing laws for nearly a decade in response to undercover operations in large-scale livestock operations. Republican Representative Jarad (JAIR-ud) Klein of Keota says the bill addresses somebody that has ill intentions and wants access to somewhere where they don't have a reason to be. 

Critics say the bill could be used to shield those who are mistreating animals or it could prevent reporting of unsafe working conditions in Iowa meatpacking plants. more

How Grandma Hears Everything...

 …and why your business should care. 

There is a new eavesdropping spy trick in town. You could get burned unless you know about it.

Let’s start with Grandma. She is hard of hearing. A while back the family gave her money to buy two new hearing aids. Nice. Now she has stopped saying, “WHAT!” all the time. She hears everything clearly. 

There is only one problem. She seems to  hear everyone’s conversations even when she is not in the room. Sometimes she is in her room with the door closed. 

It’s a mystery, but we’ll figure it out soon. more