The symptoms, which included nausea, severe headaches, ear
pain, fatigue, insomnia and sluggishness, began to emerge in recent
months and some victims were left unable to work, the diplomats said.
They are the first cases to be reported in a NATO country that hosts
U.S. troops and nuclear weapons. more
The Cyber@BGU team—consisting of Ben Nassi, Yaron Pirutin, Tomer Gator, Boris Zadov, and Professor Yuval Elovici—analyzed a broad array of widely used consumer devices including smart speakers, simple PC speakers, and USB hubs. The team found that the devices' power indicator LEDs were generally influenced perceptibly by audio signals fed through the attached speakers.
Although the fluctuations in LED signal strength generally aren't perceptible to the naked eye, they're strong enough to be read with a photodiode coupled to a simple optical telescope... more
Check out the other eavesdropping hits that have come out of Ben-Gurion University... here
Germany Arrests British Embassy Worker Suspected of Spying for Russia
Prosecutors accuse the British man of handing over documents to Russian agents for cash, amid growing concerns that Germany is increasingly caught in the cross hairs of international spying. more
A Chinese court has sentenced Canadian businessman Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, more than two years after he was first detained. Spavor, a Beijing-based businessman who regularly traveled to North Korea, was sentenced after being found guilty of spying and illegally providing state secrets to foreign countries, the Dandong Intermediate People's Court said in a statement Wednesday. more
Despite a lack of evidence, the National Security Agency will investigate whether the Fox host was illegally targeted. The National Security Agency’s Inspector General Robert Storch has announced a review of whether the agency illegally conducted cyber-espionage and collected the electronic communications of Fox News opinion-show host Tucker Carlson, who has accused the NSA of trying to capture embarrassing information that might lead to him being taken off the air. more
The proposal, part of a broader review of the
agency’s China capabilities by CIA Director William Burns, would elevate
the focus on China within the agency, where China has long been part of
a broader “Mission Center for East Asia and Pacific.” more
via Consumer Reports
While these best practices cannot ensure data and devices are fully protected, they do provide protective measures users can employ to improve their cybersecurity and reduce their risks. more
A second suspect, Michael Reilly, is also facing a charge of video voyeurism. Police said Reilly, who also worked for Ask the Advisors, watched more than 600 live and archived videos over a five-day period in July 2020 of a woman undressing in her dressing room, and of a couple having sex...
This incident follows a high-profile case that saw an ADT technician receive a 52-month jail sentence for doing essentially the same thing. more
Spycams are reportedly being used by home sellers who want to ink a deal sooner rather than later.
The survey, which was commissioned from the experience management firm Qualtrics, notably had a small sample size of home sellers – 346 – compared to home buyers – 1,160 – for a total sample size of 2,050.
Of those sellers who admit to using cameras without notifying buyers, 49% claim they do so to find out what buyers "do and don’t like about their home." more
via Dolos Group, LLC
What can you do with a stolen laptop?
Can you get access to our internal network?
That was the question a client wanted answered recently. Spoiler alert: Yes, yes you can. This post will walk you through how we took a “stolen” corporate laptop and chained several exploits together to get inside the client’s corporate network.
How many Mr. Microphones wound up behind the couch when the younger brother's older sister brought her date home?
A recent paper from the US Senate suggests advanced actors now regularly plant individuals in large organizations, with a view to stealing data and research that can be used for economic, scientific or military gain.
China, for example, is said to operate more than 200 different recruitment programs, the most elaborate of which is the Thousand Talents Plan, which is estimated to have recruited 7,000 operatives or more. And China is by no means the only country to engage in these behaviors...
In rare instances, when recruiters fail to gain access to an employee, they have been known to train up an individual specifically for the task. Known as “embeds”, these imposters are much closer to traditional spies and have a full understanding of the ambitions of their handlers.
“Sometimes, these embeds are quiet for a long time, even years. Then all of a sudden they gain access to the information they were recruited to hunt down, before disappearing into thin air. There is another level of tradecraft on display here.” more
Note: Embeds are in the best position to plant eavesdropping devices (disguised voice recorders, Wi-Fi data leaches, USB spy cables, GPS trackers, GSM cellular bugs, etc.) Periodic searches for these devices thwarts their efforts. Sometimes just by them knowing the organization conducts searches. And, of course, by discovering the devices before they can do long-term harm.
Korea's tech industries are increasingly becoming the
target of technology and intellectual property theft that has been
growing in sophistication and harmfulness...
With
industrial espionage, competitors' poaching of skilled employees,
cyberattacks and other forms of theft being rampant, the world has been
introducing stricter rules to ban theft of competitors' technologies
across borders...
Industrial espionage and cyberattacks are still
favored forms of theft, with the targets changing from conglomerates to
their subcontractors, many of them small- and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) that are often ill-equipped in terms of security and management. more
The affair became public when Khan, after defecting to UBS, confronted a private detective who was following him and his wife through Zurich.
What Credit Suisse initially described as a rogue spying case run by then-Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee widened as details emerged of other instances of surveillance.
As
well as the departures of Bouee and Thiam, a private investigator who
organized the surveillance committed suicide after the affair came to
light. more
Apple has reportedly fixed the vulnerability in iOS 14.7.1.
The security notes don’t specifically mention Pegasus, but they refer
to “a memory corruption issue” that “may have been actively exploited.” more