Computer scientists in Japan say they've developed a way to break the WPA encryption system used in wireless routers in about one minute.
The attack gives hackers a way to read encrypted traffic sent between computers and certain types of routers that use the WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption system. The attack was developed by Toshihiro Ohigashi of Hiroshima University and Masakatu Morii of Kobe University, who plan to discuss further details at a technical conference set for Sept. 25 in Hiroshima. (more)
"Is nothing sacred?" When it comes to security, "Nope nothing."
NV - You might have noticed an unuusal sight if you passed by the Reno-Stead Airport recently. The giant white sphere has generated quite a few calls to our newsroom. So what is it ?
It turns out its a prototype airship being developed by a private company called Sierra Nevada Corporation. Jim McGinley at SNC says the round airship could be used to monitor crowds or border crossings.
McGinley says the airship could be valuable to anyone who desires a persistent surveillance presence in a remote location.
Answer: Rover c.1967 (At least when it comes to surveillance balloons.)
Security researcher Karsten Nohl has issued a hacking challenge that could expose T-Mobile and AT&T cell phone users -- including Gphone and iPhone patrons -- to eavesdropping hacks within six months.
Nohl, a computer science Ph.D/ candidate from the University of Virginia, is calling for the global community of hackers to crack the encryption used on GSM phones. He plans to compile this work into a code book that can be used to decipher encrypted conversations and data that gets transmitted to and from GSM phones.
Nohl’s motive: he wants to compel the telecoms to address a security weakness that has been known for years. (more)
First the superintendent and the handyman checked the oven from top to bottom. Then they tested the electrical outlet that supplied ignition power for the oven. Everything worked. Finally, they gave their verdict to the tenant, Andrei Melnikov.
It was simply not possible, they said, that his oven, a Magic Chef made by Maytag, had turned itself on full blast, as Mr. Melnikov maintained...
“Maybe the ringing cellphone turned it on,” Mr. Melnikov suggested to the two men.
He laid the phone next to the stove. They dialed it. Suddenly, the electronic control on the stovetop beeped. The digital display changed from a clock to the word “high.” As the phone was ringing, the broiler was heating up. (more, with video)
If you have a Maytag Model CGR1425ADW oven, contact Maytag.
...and once in while, we read about some inept TVpeepcreep who gets caught and prosecuted.
Given what you now know, what do you think the ratio is between the people who get caught spycam'ing ...and the people who do it but never get caught? Let us know via our anonymous on-line Poll, in the right column.
If you have ever been the victim of a spycam please tell us about it in the Other: section of the Poll.
AirMagnet Inc., a security, performance and compliance solutions for wireless LANs, today announced that its AirMagnet Intrusion Research Team has uncovered a new wireless vulnerability and potential exploit associated with Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure.
The vulnerability involves Cisco's Over-the-Air-Provisioning (OTAP) feature found in its wireless access points (APs). The potential exploit, dubbed SkyJack by AirMagnet, creates a situation whereby control of a Cisco AP can be obtained, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to gain access to a customer's wireless LAN. (more)
A proposed plan to reorganize the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST's) IT Laboratory would close the Computer Security Division and distribute its resources and functions throughout the lab, despite objections from former officials and warnings that the move would be a backwards step for security. (more)
MI - A man accused of using hidden cameras to videotape a teen in her bedroom could avoid a prison term.
Brain J. Nowak on Monday pleaded no contest to knowingly possessing child sexually abusive material and installing an eavesdropping device. In return, Bay County prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges of using a computer to create child sexually abusive material and manufacturing an eavesdropping device.
Investigators claim from January through March, Nowak spied on his then-girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter. He installed hidden cameras on a toilet tank in the bathroom and in an air duct in the girl's bedroom. The mother found the tapes stored in a file on her computer. (more)
Oklahoma City police have begun an investigation at Feed The Children after a private investigator found evidence three offices had been illegally bugged.
The investigator "found remnants of wiretapping devices above the ceilings” during an almost six-hour sweep Wednesday evening of the charity’s Oklahoma City headquarters, according to a police report.
Officials with the charity would not identify what three offices were bugged.The Christian relief organization is widely known because of its heart-wrenching televised appeals for funds to feed starving children. It claims to raise more than $1 billion in donations a year.The charity has been in turmoil for months because of a lawsuit over who was in charge there. (more)
Scientists have perfected a new technology that can transform a fibre optic cable into a highly sensitive microphone capable of detecting a single footstep from up to 40km away.
Guards at listening posts protecting remote sensitive sites from attackers such as terrorists or environmental saboteurs can eavesdrop across huge tracts of territory using the new system which has been created to beef up security around national borders, railway networks, airports and vital oil and gas pipelines.
Devised by QinetiQ, the privatised Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), the technology piggybacks on the existing fibre optic communication cable network, millions of miles of which have been laid across.
At present, the microphones are not able to pick up the sound of human speech. right:] (more) Mason & Hanger and two other companies had similar products about 15 years ago. It had a switchable filter (10 Hz to 1 kHz / no filtering) and a headphone jack.
Herve Jaubert, a former French spy, dressed in scuba diving gear and covered up like an Arab woman to flee from threatened torture... As befits a former French naval officer and spy, he had made immaculate preparations for his escape from the United Arab Emirates.
The night before, he claims he had donned wetsuit and scuba diving gear, which had smuggled to him from France in pieces. He dressed himself in women's clothes, and covered himself with a black abaya, the all-enveloping burka-like robe worn to preserve modesty in the Gulf.
Not a small man, he shuffled awkwardly out of the hotel where he was staying under an assumed name, made his way to the seafront and slipped in.
From there, he swam underwater to the nearby coastguard station, on a remote outpost of the emirate of Fujairah, where he cut the fuel lines on a police patrol boat. He knew it was the only one in the area, and the coast would now be clear.
On his dinghy the next day... (more) Yes, the story gets better.
via The New York Post & The New York Daily News... NY - The former lawyer for "Goodfellas" turncoat Henry Hill was convicted yesterday on a slew of witness-tampering charges.
Robert Simels, 62, glowered as the jury handed down its guilty verdict on 12 counts of conspiring to threaten and bribe witnesses and possessing illegal wiretapping equipment. Simels had done his dirty work on behalf of a powerful Guyanese drug lord.
Once a legal commentator on FOX News and CNN, Simels was done in by his big mouth. An informant taped him discussing plans to "neutralize" a witness. He faces disbarment and between 12 and 15½ years in jail. (more) (more)
To reveal a gruesome dolphin slaughter to the world, the makers of the documentary The Cove used spy drones, cameras disguised as rocks and a lot of daring... Military-grade heat-sensing cameras were used to track the movements of guards.
The cameras were so cutting-edge that manufacturer Sony hadn’t yet released the software necessary to pull data off the hard drives and edit it. The team hid the drives in a hotel air conditioning duct, and within a day of retrieving each one had runners take them to Tokyo or Osaka and send them out of the country.
The movie depicts a hunt in the waters off Taiji, Japan, where at least 2,000 dolphins are killed every year, with a few caught and sold to aquariums. The meat, containing toxic levels of mercury is sold to people, often passed off as whale meat...
The next dolphin hunting season will begin in Japan in September. (more)
"The Cove" tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries they uncovered were only the tip of the iceberg...
Peeping into Britney Spears’ home in California has landed a woman three years’ probation, and a court order do 240 hours of community service.
Miranda Tozier-Robbins, 26, was arrested in April after being spotted by Britney’s security guards in the grounds of the singer’s Calabasas property. Miranda, claimed that she was filming a documentary. (more)
A campaign group calling for Switzerland to give up its army has accused the weapons industry of planting a spy within its organisation.The Group for Switzerland without an Army says the Farner communications firm, acting on behalf of the armaments industry, sent a spy to observe them in the lead up to a vote on weapons exports. The group is demanding to know who exactly the sensitive information was passed on to and are threatening to sue both the spy and the communications company. (more)
FREE AND SEATING IS LIMITED. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2009
PA -The acclaimed 15-piece City Rhythm Orchestra concert features music from the soundtracks of your favorite spy movies and television shows.The scores from these classics are as memorable as the characters themselves, and City Rhythm's "arresting" arrangements will bring them to life on stage.
The band will perform works by Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, and Billy May, including the themes from Mission Impossible, Pink Panther, James Bond, Peter Gunn, Live and Let Die, and much more. Free admission. Seating is limited. (more)
This time, she is: Alicia DeLeon-Torres, a Commissioner for the City of San Diego’s Commission on Gang Prevention and Intervention, and the National Director for National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse.
We thank her for sharing her story with the San Diego News Network.
"I’m on the Los Angeles to San Diego Amtrak afternoon commuter train. The guy across from me is looking at his laptop screen. As he scrolls through his documents, I easily see the pretty graphics, staff assignments and other information I’m sure that I - and others on the train - are not meant to see. If you think I’m spying, I’m not. I’m annoyed!" (more)
Summary - Don't blab your sensitive business in public. You never know who may be listening... or what they will do with what they hear.
Do you have what it takes to be a spy? Better yet do you even have a clue what it takes to be a spy photographer and what it takes to be on the leading edge?
Last Night ABC News showcased probably the most prolific of the professional photographers in the business, the legendary Brenda Priddy. (more) (ABC News video)
A former US government informant, who hacked into retail networks to steal 130 million debit and credit card numbers, has been charged over the country's largest financial data theft.
Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Florida, is accused of stealing 130 million accounts, on top of 40 million he himself stole previously, according to prosecutors.
He was an ex-informant for the US Secret Service, which he helped hunt hackers, authorities say. (more) (sing-a-long)
Canada - A Grande Prairie man has pleaded guilty to voyeurism, in connection with a bathroom video-taping scandal. The Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune reports 30 year-old Blair Stouffer made the plea Wednesday in provincial court. A ten-year employee at the Q.E.II hospital, Stouffer is the second person to be picked up by police in the scandal, but the first to face formal charges. The Herald-Tribune says he admits that he is the man seen in some of the footage, setting up the camera, in a bathroom at the Q.E.II hospital. Before its discovery, the camera captured 70 videos of three different victims. (more)
News is spreading quickly within the underground BlackBerry community of a leak within Research in Motion, the company that makes the phone, of the latest BlackBerry operating system. Designed for the Curve, the new OS (which has been rumored for some time) could easily be the upcoming release for other models such as the popular Bold. (more)
Australia's diplomats have been targets of a cyber espionage attack strongly suspected to have originated from China.
According to an internal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade briefing, a fake email was sent to a number of DFAT officers in the week beginning July 12, just over a week after the arrest in China of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu.
DFAT insiders said the format and content of the email strongly suggested that it originated in China and was designed to collect intelligence from department computers. (more)
FutureWatch - Warfare (political and commercial) continues to morph, with human combatants being replaced by technobots. The enemies are stepping out of uniform ...and into obscurity.
"One never knows, do one?" opines Fats Waller. "The Shadow knows," smirks Lamont Cranston.
The Big Security Mistake... Focusing the security budget on hardware and personnel.
Today's losses are coming at you from the shadows. • Eavesdropping on your strategies. • Viewing your private moments. • Stealing your intellectual property.
FL - A nurse working at the assisted living facility Hawthorne House was arrested after she admitted to taking medication from the residents there.
According to her arrest report, Kimberly Shannon King, 27, had been taking prescription medicine from resident rooms for about two months. King was working each time medicine was taken, the report said. That’s when the administrators asked permission from one of the residents to install a covert video camera in his room to try and catch the thief in action.
One night, King entered the room and stole one and a half Oxycodone pills. King also stole the camera, so Hawthorne House administrators could not prove she was the culprit.
Administrators then installed a second camera in the same room.
When administrators watched the video, they saw King go to the drawer, remove a medicine bottle and take medication out of it. She placed the pills in her pocket, replaced the bottle and left the room, the report said. (more)
Ever wonder about municipal street cameras? What do they see? What about picture quality? Is anybody really watching them? Check herefor three fascinating videos.
Translation... Keystroke logging software may be inserted directly into some keyboards. A physical inspection won't find it. Reloading your system software won't destroy it.
"The security posture of a computer can be adversely affected by poorly-designed devices on its USB bus. Many modern embedded devices permit firmware to be upgraded in the field and the use of low-cost microcontrollers in these devices can make it difficult to perform the mathematical operations needed to verify a cryptographic signature. The security of many of these upgrade mechanisms is very much in question. For a concrete example, we describe how to tamper with a firmware upgrade to the Apple Aluminum Keyboard. We describe how an attacker can subvert an off-the-shelf keyboard by embedding into the firmware malicious code which allows a rootkit to survive a clean re-installation of the host operating system." K. Chen - Georgia Institute of Technology (more)
Some co-workers may have mole-like personal habits, but a true corporate mole is a dangerous animal. They burrow in, keep a low profile and eat profits buy selling intellectual property.
Why do they do it? Primarily money. They are on two payroll at the same time, and one of them may be very remunerative. A sense of power, adventure or righteousness are also motivating factors.
How does one learn how to be a corporate mole? There are many books, but one can also learn for free at ehow.com where you can learn "How to do just about everything."
P.S. You may also want to read their How to Spot a Corporate Mole tutorial which is missing... Step 8: Conduct electronic eavesdropping detection audits regularly. Moles are in the best position, and have the highest motivation, to plant electronic eavesdropping devices.
The U.S. Navy is preparing to shoot a faltering U.S. spy satellite out of the sky in the next two weeks using a tactical missile that was manufactured as a defensive weapon to head off enemy aircraft, the Pentagon announced.
While it's not uncommon for space junk to fall out of the sky, military officials said they are particularly concerned in this case because much of the 1,000 pounds of the frozen rocket fuel called hydrazine on the spacecraft could survive the descent and pose health risks, such as damage to skin and lung tissue, if it lands in a populated area. (more)
GA - A Chatsworth man has been arrested on eavesdropping charges that officials said include installing a video camera in his daughter’s bathroom.
Douglas Harrison Keith, 59, of 1253 Stafford Road in Chatsworth, was charged by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office with unlawful eavesdropping/surveillance with audio equipment and unlawful eavesdropping/surveillance with hidden video cameras (four counts).
“The eavesdropping warrant by audio regards a telephone conversation being recorded without the people on the phone being aware of it,” said District Attorney Kermit McManus. “According to Georgia law, at least one person must be aware (the conversation is being recorded).”
McManus said another eavesdropping charge came when a video camera was discovered in a bathroom used “solely” by his daughter, with the images being fed into an office where Keith had sole access. A spokesman with the sheriff’s office said the daughter discovered the camera in the bathroom. (more)
Spain - A scandal over alleged corruption and wiretaps in Spain heated up Tuesday as the opposition leader accused Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of "persecuting" his party. (more)
The Palais de Tokyo's ongoing exhibition, Spy Numbers, takes as its starting point the mysterious and vaguely distressing Numbers Stations. These shortwave radio stations have been broadcasting for several decades, yet their precise function and origin are an enigma. Artificially generated voices are reading streams of numbers, words, letters, tunes or Morse code...
On the short waves of our radios, voices read out uninterrupted series of numbers. 2… 11… 58… 35… 23… Whether they are encrypted instructions intended for sleeping agents, messages exchanged between traffickers, or simple telephone settings, the “Spy Numbers Stations” have been broadcasting for several decades without their precise function becoming known.
HONG KONG -- Now that financial crime thriller “Overheard” has become the top Chinese-language film in China so far this summer, writer-director Alan Mak and Felix Chong are planning a follow-up that revolves around eavesdropping...
“It wouldn’t be a prequel that involves the same characters, as their lives before what happened in ‘Overheard’ wouldn’t be dramatic enough for a story,” Mak told the Hollywood Reporter. “But we think there’s a lot to be explored about bugging and eavesdropping, and are developing a script around this theme.” (more)
Synopsis for "Overheard" A major stock exchange in the world, Hong Kong attracts not only money but anyone who tries to manipulate the market. At the Hong Kong Police Force Commercial Crime Bureau, an operation is underway to infiltrate a trading company where a man nicknamed Boss is the chief suspect. The team, led by Inspector Leung (Lau Ching Wan) together with Yeung (Louis Koo) and Lam (Daniel Wu) installs bugs to monitor the communications. When crucial information on a surging share is intercepted, a moment of greed now puts them in a crossfire between the Bureau and the boss.
True security innovations don't show up every day. Locks are still locks. Alarms are still alarms. Models, designs and features change, but functions remain the same. You get the idea.
Here is truly innovative and useful idea... a system that can quickly account for employees during emergency situations (an OSHA requirement).
The system - 911HEADCOUNT - is a clever combination of technologies. The brains behind 911Headcount is Bo Mitchell, the Former Police Commissioner of Wilton, CT and a respected consultant in the private security industry.
from their Web site... "911 Headcount is the first and only automatic two-way, triple redundancy Mass Emergency Notification System that you can launch and manipulate on the run to account for employees, visitors and contractors in any emergency." • Background. • How it works.
Coming this Fall (in Japan)... The Un-Welcome Mat or, as we call it around here, Kevin's Home Alone Safety Zone Burglar Atone and Drop Zone Rat Mat. It is a giant sticky mat! Strategically place them at your portals when you leave. Stuck like a bug in a rug, your burglar will be playing Ultimate Twister instead of carting off your goodies. Just don't forget it's there when you come home. Look for it to be sold here.
Man-in-the-middle attacks tamper with video surveillance feeds, eavesdrop on IP video phone conversations
In one attack, researchers from Viper Lab showed how a criminal could tamper with an IP video surveillance system to cover up a crime by replacing the video with another benign clip. In another demo, they eavesdropped on a private IP video call. (more)
Hey, how's your disaster recovery plan looking? Dusty? Faded? Incomplete? Incompetent? MIA? Just missing? Don't have one yet? I see a lot of raised hands.
Every business, large and small, needs a "what if... what do we do?" plan.
A smarter way is to enlist the aid of a professional consultant. • International Association of Professional Security Consultants • BAM - "BAM has a crackerjack team of ex-military strategists, FBI trainers, intelligence and security professionals, mathematicians, and 3D creative agents who use the latest technology, including mobile devices and social media networks, to arm their clients with the most appropriate tools for dealing with disaster, as it happens."Kevin Burton is their CEO.
TX - Surveillance video at a Dallas-area store caught the theft of several dozen plants, flowers and small statues on tape. But the culprit turned out to be a very unusual thief, a monkey with serious sticky fingers. (video) (sing-a-long)
via The Wall Street Journal... A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer who quit last month was arrested and charged with stealing codes related to a high-speed trading program that he helped develop.
The programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, 39 years old, was arrested Friday by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents as he got off a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport. According to a complaint filed Saturday, Mr. Aleynikov downloaded 32 megabytes of data from Goldman's computer system with "the intent to convert that trade secret to the economic benefit of someone other than the owner."...
According to the FBI, Mr. Aleynikov got a job offer earlier this year at an unnamed Chicago firm that planned to triple the $400,000-a-year salary he was paid at Goldman. The unnamed company is "new" and "intended to engage in high-volume automated trading," the FBI said in the court filing. (more)
Apple says it has had enough of giving people replacement iPhones and iPods when, in their view, it is the consumer who has abused the gadget and rendered it inoperable.
So today the firm has filed a patent on a kind of spy system that sits inside gadgets to record "consumer abuse events" and reveal them to Apple staff when you ask for a replacement.
"Often, particularly at a point of sale, personnel receiving the returned device may be unqualified or untrained to determine whether or not a device has failed due to manufacturing defects or due to consumer abuse," the company explains in US patent application 20090195394. (more)
OR - Last year the woman told police told police she thought her landlord was spying on her through a hidden camera in the shower.
The woman lived in an upstairs apartment inside the home the landlord shared with a second renter. That landlord - former Kalama City Council member Paul Stickel - has been charged with voyeurism, but he claims he did no such thing.
Police searched Stickel's home last Spring and confiscated videotapes, televisions and cable. They also found a hole in the wall in the woman's bathroom.
In a March 2008 affidavit, police said videotape taken from Stickel's home "shows Stickel simulating taking a shower" to test the camera-equipped shower stall.Detectives also cited a "secret viewing area" - a covered peephole - that looks out through a mirror on the woman's medicine cabinet.
Stickel claims the investigators are bluffing. (more) (video)
from the seller's Web site... Xtern-Cam® is a rugged outdoor standalone surveillance camera with inbuilt GPRS modem (receive the photos on your cell), digital image recording function, integrated night vision and inbuilt Solar Panel to give extraordinary long battery life.
The camera captures high-resolution black & white images when motion is detected and emails a selection of these to a monitoring station or mobile phone as well as storing all the high resolution images to a removable memory card for easy viewing later, on a computer or PDA. The camera can also be powered by an external 12VDC power source and can be externally triggered from a gate or door opening.
Outdoors in time lapse mode using its inbuilt Solar panel to recharge the battery during the day, Xtern-Cam® can capture and transmit wirelessly, one image every 5 minutes at night time without ever requiring the battery to be re-charged. Similarly, if Motion activated, it can capture and transmit up to 150 images every night without ever having to charge the battery.
In busy environments where the Camera may capture and transmit up to 330 images per night, the battery would still last around one month! The camera can store up to 65,000 VGA images and will optionally overwrite the oldest images when the memory card is full to enable ‘set and forget’ operation.
Xtern-Cam® is also available with a colour camera for daytime operation with optional 16mm or 8mm telephoto lenses. (more)
Wharton School professor Andrea Matwyshyn has attended Defcon for the past five years. This year, her radar is pointing to corporate disclosure of computer security threats.
Most consumers, she says, find out about them primarily through news reports and after-the-fact data breach notifications. Big business, Matwyshyn says, needs to do a much better job of keeping customers abreast of how they're dealing with big security threats. "Companies need to be aware that their customers are going to start asking questions about their security and what they're doing," she told Forbes. (more)
Having quarterly TSCM inspection logs in your files can help stave off stockholder lawsuits. ~Kevin
IL - A Clinton police officer accused of viewing pornography on his squad car computer is asking that evidence collected from the computer be barred from an upcoming disciplinary hearing because police officials are guilty of eavesdropping.
Patrolman Billy Hurst, 40, of Clinton will face the Clinton Police and Fire Commission on Aug. 13 on charges that he acted improperly by spending more than 23 hours watching pornography during working hours from Nov. 13, 2008, to Jan. 24...
Hurst's attorney, Shane Voyles, with the Policemen's Benevolent labor committee, filed a civil complaint in May in DeWitt County court accusing Reidy of eavesdropping by monitoring Hurst's computer activities. Hurst did not consent to the city's installation of software put in place after viruses were detected on city computers, said Voyles. (more)
WATERGATE I The chief of Hungary’s secret services – the National Security Office (NBH) – quit last Monday, saying his position had become untenable due to the way other authorities handled a scandal over a private security firm allegedly used to spy on politicians.
In his resignation letter, Sándor Laborc spoke of “anomalies” in the way the public prosecution service and the NBH handled the UD Affair...
The UD scandal, over which Laborc would eventually resign, began last September when the head of the small conservative opposition party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) received an audio recording of one of UD’s owners talking to the owner and CEO of OTP Bank, Sándor Csányi, about a commission to collect data on her.
Ibolya Dávid claimed that someone was trying to discredit her in the run up to the MDF’s party leadership election...Dávid last Tuesday said during a television interview that the UD affair had turned into a Hungarian "Watergate." (more)
WATERGATE II via Gizmodo.com... Instead of creating the usual steel turnstile, the Watergate's designers used the primordial liquid as a psychological barrier. Their logic: People won't like to get their clothes wet...
It's a good idea, because most people will actually respect it. Another good thing: If something happens, people can run to the exit without having to go through gates:Water is only a psychological barrier.
Fleeing, panicking persons can escape through the gate without being hindered by any rigid media. Clever.
An added advantage is that people in wheelchairs or carrying luggage can easily pass through them. Very clever. (more) (video)
USB cable UHF transmitter. When plugged to a USB port the cable works as usual and the transmitter inside the cable transmits conversations or any sound to a distant receiver.
No batteries needed. The transmitter works as long as it remains plugged to a USB port. Automatic Gain Control lets it pick up a whisper up to 40 feet away – as clearly as loud speech near it. (more)
Pretty much impossible to discover yourself just by looking. But, hey... that's why you keep our information handy. ~Kevin
Fibre-optic cable networks are not as secure as believed - with new technology making it easy for hackers to steal data from them, according to an IDC report.
IDC research analyst Romain Fouchereau said that the reputation of a fibre-optic cable network as more secure than copper cables wasn’t justified, and that new and inexpensive technologies have now made data theft easily possible for hackers without detection.
Organisations that carry sensitive information across fibre-optic cables are potentially vulnerable from criminal threats, as much of the cabling is easily accessible and not well protected. Fouchereau said that hacks on optical networks could be achieved simply by extracting light from ultra-thin fibres. (more)
Once a successful tap has been achieved, software that records, monitors and analyses the data (called packet sniffers), can capture the data...
“Hence, capturing or eavesdropping on this data serves not only military purposes. Industrial espionage in these sectors is worth billions of dollars.” (more)
Two researchers at Defcon on Friday demonstrated tools that allow people to eavesdrop on video conference calls and intercept surveillance camera video.
An attacker needs to be in the same building as the victims to carry out the man-in-the-middle attacks over the network.
The freeUCSniff tool, available in Linux and Windows versions, offers a slick graphical user interface for sniffing video, said Jason Ostrom, director of the Viper Lab at Sipera Systems. The tool basically tricks the voice-over-IP network carrying the video into sending the data packets to the attacker's computer, he said.
This could be used to spy on people. For instance, an attacker could listen in on and record confidential conversations between an executive who is on a video conference call with another remote executive, according to Ostrom.
Ostrom and Arjun Sambamoorthy, a research engineer at Viper Lab, also have developed another free tool called VideoJak that can be used to intercept video streams.
Thieves planning to steal from a museum, for example, could use the tool to change live surveillance video being watched by a museum security guard so that it replayed previous video of the art, giving thieves time to steal art without detection. (more)
Paris - The story has the elements of a corporate thriller: a cast of characters that includes former French spies and military men, an American cycling champion, Greenpeace activists and a dogged judge whose investigation takes him from a sports doping laboratory outside Paris to a Moroccan jail and to some of the top corporations in France.
Like installments in a serial novel, new revelations have been dripping out since March. And while the climax is still probably many months away, the story is providing a rare glimpse into the shadowy and potentially lucrative business of gathering what corporations refer to as “strategic intelligence.” (more) The whole story is as fascinating as it is revealing. Click "more" to read the full story.
High stakes business espionage is very real.
Smart executives have counterespionage programs. Doubters have their pockets picked. Stories like this represent espionage failures; the tip of the spyberg. Successful spying (by definition) goes unnoticed.~Kevin
Computer scientists in Japan say they've developed a way to break the WPA encryption system used in wireless routers in about one minute. 
