FutureWatch: The AI Eye of Providence, or Silcon Santa Surveillance

NICE Actimize, a NICE business and the leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, is hosting a series of global events to educate financial services organization (FSO) professionals on the challenges of electronic communications (eComms) surveillance and which are designed to demonstrate how its innovative Intelligent eComms Surveillance solution can transform compliance and conduct risk management, while avoiding reputational damage and fines...

Powered by artificial intelligence and automation, NICE Actimize’s Intelligent eComms Surveillance solution is a comprehensive platform for automating employee surveillance and investigations. The solution provides a single platform for monitoring 100 percent communications across all communication channels, including voice, so analysts can easily uncover hidden conduct risks, collusion, and insider trading...

...it supports hundreds of data types and can connect to, ingest and index data from storage vaults containing emails, instant messages, chat room communications, social media threads, text messages and voice calls...

NICE Actimize’s Intelligent eComms Surveillance solution uses Natural Language Understanding (text analytics and linguistics), machine learning and intelligent analytics (all fine-tuned for financial markets) to comprehend the true context of conversations and accurately identify risk...

This systematic approach enables firms to identify suspicious communications with unprecedented accuracy... more

Keep in mind, the financial world had the initial need and means to develop this. Once evolved and rolled-out you can bet it will be customized for other uses. Eventually... click here.  ~Kevin

Feds Charge 4 State-Owned Companies with Economic Espionage

U.S. Four Chinese state-owned companies were arraigned in federal court in California on charges of economic espionage, prosecutors announced Friday.

Pangang Group Company, Ltd. and three of its subsidiaries allegedly conspired with Chinese nationals Hou Shengdong and Dong Yingjie to acquire stolen or misappropriated trade secrets involving the production technology for chloride-route titanium dioxide, also known as TiO2, from the DuPont company...

TiO2 is commonly used as a white pigment in paints after the use of lead oxide was banned several years ago...It is also used as a pigment in inks, plastics, cosmetics, soap, toothpaste and food.

"DuPont had developed the technology and controlled a significant amount of the world's TiO2 sales," prosecutors said. "The defendants are alleged to have obtained confidential trade secret information including photographs related to TiO2 plant technologies and facilities."

The Pangang companies, along with Hou and Dong, are also accused of paying an Oakland company $27,000,000 between 2006 and 2011 for assistance in obtaining DuPont's trade secrets. more Official Press Release

Couple Find Spycam in Vacation Rental Unit

A British couple vacationing in Toronto were horrified to discover a spy camera hidden in a digital clock at their rental apartment.

Dougie Hamilton, 34, from Glasgow, realized that the clock was “connected to a wire like a phone charger”.

He now fears whoever planted the camera at the Airbnb may have recorded clandestine footage of him and his girlfriend.

Hamilton told Scotland’s Daily Record that the property’s host had at least half a dozen other properties for lease on Airbnb, accompanied by numerous reviews.

“I just happened to be facing this clock and was staring at it for about 10 minutes. There was just something in my head that made me feel a bit uneasy.”

A recent video he saw on social media about spy cameras made him increasingly concerned. more

Lesson: Trust your instincts. The thought would never have occurred to you if everything were fine. This applies to all electronic surveillance devices: bugs, taps, smartphone and computer spyware, spy cameras, and corporate espionage. ~Kevin

In other news... (You can't make this stuff up.)

A woman accused of gunning down her chef husband is a self-published romance writer who once penned an essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband."

She has also written such titles as "The Wrong Husband," a 2015 novel about a woman who escapes an abusive spouse during a shipwreck in the Mediterranean and falls in love with one of the men sent to find her.

"Divorce is expensive, and do you really want to split your possessions?" she wrote in a section about financial motives. more

Apparently, others have had similar thoughts...

Spycam Conviction — Chalk One Up for the Good Guys

Roger Wallach, 38, of Philadelphia, PA was sentenced today to 240 months in federal prison for manufacturing videos and images of two girls, ages 10 and 11, over a period of three months.

Wallach previously pleaded guilty to nine counts of manufacturing and attempting to manufacture child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography. As part of his guilty plea, Wallach admitted that he concealed a spy watch in a bathroom and surreptitiously recorded the 10- and 11-year-old girls as they undressed, used the bathroom, and showered. He also used the webcam on his laptop computer to record them undressing and in various states of nudity. All total, he had hundreds of sexually explicit images of both girls that he saved on his cell phone, in his iCloud account, on his laptop, and on the memory of his spy watch.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, the court imposed a 20-year term of supervised release and ordered that the defendant undergo a sex offender evaluation and treatment after his release from federal prison. more

Industrial Espionage: The Deafening Sounds of a Rip-Off

Apple designed an iPhone. 

Motorola wanted one, too. 

Industrial espionage?!?! 

You decide.

Welcome to the business zoo.

Spybuster Security Tip #748: The Lost Smartphone Recovery Trick

Chances are, if you lose your smartphone the screen will look like this to whoever finds it. 
(If your phone is not password protected do that now.)

This presents a problem to the good Samaritan who finds it. They don’t know to whom the phone should be returned.

Sure, you could call the phone and hope they answer, or try using the ‘find my phone feature’, but that takes time and a positive result is iffy.

Solution…

Give the finder a helpful clue as to who you are. Customize your background wallpaper to include some information about you.

Including an email address is a very good start. Now they know how to contact you. If you want to keep your real email address private, create a nondescript google/yahoo/hotmail account just for this purpose.

If your email address also contains a company URL they might be close enough to drop the phone off at the reception desk for you.

Adding an alternate phone number where you can be reached, or adding the old enticing phrase, Reward if Found, are additional options.

It is easy to change wallpapers on smartphones. Just google “[your smartphone manufacturer] change wallpaper” and the directions will pop up.

Creating a customized wallpaper is almost as easy. You can do it with any photoshop type app, or by using a free on-line service.

Resources…
https://mashable.com/2013/08/12/wallpaper-iphone/
https://datarecovery.wondershare.com/best-iphone-wallpaper-maker.html
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-custom-wallpaper-android/
https://www.picmonkey.com/blog/make-your-own-phone-wallpaper
https://www.canva.com/create/wallpapers/
https://spark.adobe.com/make/background-maker/

Business Espionage Info-Theft: When they can't hack it, they grab the employees.

Investigators discovered what they believed to be a major infiltration campaign.

Two years before Equifax Inc. stunned the world with the announcement it had been hacked, the credit-reporting company believed it was the victim of another theft...

In the previously undisclosed incident, security officials feared that former employees had removed thousands of pages of proprietary information before leaving and heading to jobs in China. Materials included code for planned new products, human-resources files and manuals...

According to the people familiar with the probe, the investigators, by talking to Equifax employees and examining email accounts and LinkedIn messages sent to them, saw indications that recruiters purporting to represent Ant affiliate Alibaba had offered to triple salaries for certain ethnically Chinese Equifax employees—and provided instructions on specific Equifax information they should bring along if they jumped ship. more

Downer of the Day – Paranoia Is Now a Best Practice

Bust out the tinfoil—the data security crisis is worse than you ever imagined...

he 2010s will be remembered as the first decade in which we, the people, paid for the pleasure of welcoming Big Brother into our lives.

When George Orwell depicted an inescapable surveillance state — telescreens in every room monitoring every move, recording every sound, and reporting it all to the authoritarian leader — in his classic novel 1984, he probably never imagined that in 2018, folks would pay $600 (plus a recurring monthly fee) for the privilege of carrying a telescreen in their pockets. more

Buy yours now.

Computer Screens Emit Sounds that Reveal Data

Computer scientists from Tel Aviv University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have discovered a computer version of synesthesia that allows them to determine what’s being displayed on a monitor by listening to sounds emitted by the monitor.

As you might suspect, those sounds are very faint and not easily detected by human hearing. But they are there as tiny high-pitched tones produced by a monitor’s power supply in response to the varying demands of the screen display. But special equipment isn’t required to exploit the vulnerability that’s produced by this characteristic of most monitors.

In their paper, which was released on Aug. 21, the scientists showed that those sounds could be recorded using the microphone in a standard consumer webcam, by a smartphone or by a digital assistant such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home device.

Furthermore, this exploit does not require the presence on site of the attacker. They can record the sounds over a remote call, such as one from Google Hangouts. The amount of information that the researchers were able to discern using their method was remarkable... more

mSpy Goes Platinum - Leaks 2 Million Records

mSpy, a commercial spyware solution designed to help you spy on kids and partners, has leaked over 2 million records including software purchases and iCloud usernames and authentication tokens of devices running mSky.

The data appears to have come from an unsecured database that allowed security researchers to pull out millions of records.

mSpy is a platform that allows parents to see what their children are doing online and, presumably, allow partners to keep tabs on each other. more

This is the second time mSpy has been hacked... that we know of.

Neutralizer for Car Infotainment Systems

Privacy4Cars, a mobile app designed to help erase Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from modern vehicles, recently was released as a free download on iOS and Android devices.

The Privacy4Cars app, according to the company, enables consumers and businesses to quickly and efficiently delete personal data retained by modern vehicle infotainment systems. The app was developed by Andrea Amico, an expert in vehicle privacy and cybersecurity.


Privacy4Cars' patent-pending process provides customized, visual step-by-step tutorials to help users quickly erase personal information such as phone numbers, call logs, location history and garage door codes from vehicle infotainment systems. more

Eavesdropping — at the Ian Potter Museum of Art Melbourne

WHAT: Eavesdropping — Tue, 24. July–Sun, 28. October 2018
WHERE: Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
ADMISSION: Free

Eaves­drop­ping is a unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between Liquid Archi­tec­ture, Mel­bourne Law School and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, com­pris­ing an exhi­bi­tion, a public pro­gram, series of work­ing groups and tour­ing event which explores the pol­i­tics of lis­ten­ing through work by lead­ing artists, researchers, writ­ers and activists from Aus­tralia and around the world.

EAVES­DROP­PING used to be a crime. Accord­ing to William Black­stone, in his Com­men­taries on the Laws of Eng­land (1769): ​‘eaves­drop­pers, or such as listen under walls or win­dows, or the eaves of a house, to hear­ken after dis­course, and there­upon to frame slan­der­ous and mis­chie­vous tales, are a common nui­sance and pre­sentable at the court-leet.’

Click to enlarge

Two hun­dred and fifty years later, eaves­drop­ping isn’t just legal, it’s ubiq­ui­tous. What was once a minor public order offence has become one of the most impor­tant politico-legal prob­lems of our time, as the Snow­den rev­e­la­tions made abun­dantly clear. Eaves­drop­ping: the ever-increas­ing access to, cap­ture and con­trol of our sonic worlds by state and cor­po­rate inter­ests. But eaves­drop­ping isn’t just about big data, sur­veil­lance and secu­rity... more

"New" Theory on the Cuba / China Sonic Headaches

The mystery illness afflicting American diplomats in Cuba and China could be a side effect of bugging or surveillance rather than a sonic weapon attack, according to a US researcher.

Dr Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, said the reported symptoms strongly matched the known effects of radio frequency and microwave radiation.

“Surveillance is my lead hypothesis, as opposed to something like attacks or weaponry,” said Golomb, whose research will be published in the journal Neural Computation on September 15. more

Security Scrapbook fans already knew this might be a botched spying attempt, and how it worked, back in August 2017. ~Kevin

Drive-by Hackers Can Spy on Millions of Chrome Users Through Their Webcams

Drive-by hackers can spy on millions of Chrome users through their WEBCAMS experts claim, after finding a security glitch in the browser.

• According to UK cyber-security experts, hackers could attack entire streets.
• They might be able to steal passwords and activate webcams in an attack.
• Experts reported the issue to Google earlier this year but was told that it was working fine.

The glitch affects people who have logged onto their router as admin and saved details in their browser. more

Smart Home Technology Being Used by Abusers to Control and Terrorize

Imagine the temperature changing on your thermostat without you doing it, or seeing your lights turn off and on without you touching the switch.

Or your Alexa blaring music in the middle of the night. Or finding hidden cameras placed in your home -- without your knowledge or consent.

These are the sort of things abusive partners and exes can use to try to control their loved ones and if it's happening to you, you need to report it.

"It was awful, absolutely awful," said Aubrey, a Houston woman who spoke with News 6 sister station KPRC about her fiancé secretly watching her in her home. "Everywhere I went, everything I did, he could hear it. He could see it. It was awful."

Aubrey says after she and her fiancé moved in together, she discovered he had installed cameras throughout the house without her knowledge or consent. She said she discovered it by accident while using his cellphone...

"Every time we get an advance in technology, the bad guys seem to take advantage of it," Oviedo police Lt. Travis Cockcroft said.

So what are some things you can do to break free of an abuser's digital trap?

• Make sure you change your passwords on all of your accounts.
• Reset your Wi-Fi settings to something only you would know.
• Educate yourself about what your smart home devices can do.
• Reset privacy settings.
• Keep a journal of any peculiar activity with dates and times and description of what happened. 

more and more

Ex-boyfriend Faces Jail - Concealed Hidden Listening Devices in Her Bedroom

An "evasive and dishonest" ex-boyfriend faces jail after spying on his lover by concealing hidden listening devices in her home.

Wayne Bamford, 47, mounted a stalking campaign after being spurned by mother-of-one Joanna Dawson, a court heard.

He hid two secret listening devices in her bedroom in what was described as a "highly sophisticated" covert operation. She found a twin dual adapter plug - which had a hole in it - in her bedroom next to her bedside cabinet.

Experts revealed it was, in fact, a listening device and Bamford was arrested and then bailed by police.

Bamford called the second listening device at least 1,600 times in a bid to hear what was happening in Miss Dawson's house over 15 days from March 1, 2017, to March 16, 2017, the court heard.

But Bamford's surveillance op was foiled after Miss Dawson sought advice... more

The Implications of Recording in the Workplace

Workplace recordings have made headlines in recent weeks. For example, Omarosa Manigault-Newman publicly played a recording of a meeting with her then-boss, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, to bolster her claim that he threatened her during the meeting.

White House officials quickly fired back that the recording was a breach of protocol and possibly illegal.

Given the controversies in the news, employers might be wondering when recording is legal and what policies they can lawfully implement on recording in the workplace.

Although recordings can be useful to resolve disputed facts about a conversation, surreptitious recording in the workplace can create both legal and business risks for employers. Both employers and employees may violate state and federal wiretap laws by recording without consent. Even with consent, employers should hesitate before taping employees, because pervasive surveillance in the workplace can put workers on edge and damage their morale.

Similarly, employee recording may discomfit employees and customers, and put the employer’s confidential information at risk. Some employers respond to these risks by outright prohibiting recording in the workplace. more

Seoul to Inspect Public Toilets Daily to Tackle 'Spy-Cam Porn' Crisis

South Korea’s capital and largest city, Seoul, is set to begin daily checks for hidden cameras in public toilets in response to growing public outrage over an epidemic of “spy-cam porn”.

South Korea is in the middle of a battle against videos secretly filmed in places such as toilet stalls and changing rooms. Police have said more than 26,000 victims between 2012 and 2016 have been identified, but many cases go unreported...

Record numbers of women have held a monthly protest on the streets of Seoul calling for the government to do more, with last month’s demonstration drawing 70,000 protesters, according to the organizers.

At present, the Seoul government checks each toilet about once a month, and employs only 50 inspectors to monitor more than 20,000 public bathrooms, according to news agency Yonhap. The new plan will call for the 8,000 city workers who maintain and clean the bathrooms to conduct daily checks. more

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Drone Stealers

In what might be the most 2018 news story ever, head coach Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers have erected a tarp near one of their practice facilities.

Why is this news? Well, said tarp is meant to protect the Steelers from being spied on with drones. more

Why Vienna Is the Spy Capital of the World

via Cindy Otis 
A former chief in the Austrian intelligence service once told the Telegraph that more than 7,000 spies operated in Vienna, a city of nearly 1.8 million people. It’s “a nice place for spies to live and bring their families,” he added. Although there are many reasons to visit Vienna for tourists and spies alike, Austria’s famous chocolate cake (sachertorte) and the city’s perfectly preserved Habsburg palaces are not the reason intelligence services still flock to the city.

Austria has some of the most relaxed laws on spying of any country in the world and those laws have not been updated since the Austro-Hungarian empire fell, even with two world wars and the Cold War since then. In fact, the only spying activities that are illegal in the country are the kind that directly target Austria. Vienna also hosts one of four headquarters of the United Nations and is home to about 40 other important international organizations that have delegations from all over the world, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). With approximately 320 bilateral and multilateral diplomatic representations operating in Vienna, nearly 4,000 diplomats, and more than 6,000 international officials, Vienna is brimming with information foreign intelligence services want to collect.

But it is in wandering the streets of Vienna that you really start to see why the city lives up to its cloak and dagger history. Vienna’s famous coffee houses have played an important role as meeting places for writers, musicians, artists and philosophers throughout history. At Café Central in the heart of Vienna, you can dine on Apfelstrudel in the same place where Leo Trostky and Sigmund Freud sat. You can also take advantage of the seemingly endless coffeehouse chatter to meet your sources under the radar and to mask any clandestine conversations you need to have. more hum-a-long

Apple Smacks Down Facebook's VPN Spying App

Back in 2013, Facebook acquired Israel-based Onavo, a small mobile analytics company that offered a virtual private network (VPN) app called Onavo Protect. In general, VPN apps seek to give users greater privacy and control around their data by routing traffic through a secure network. In this case, Onavo Protect started sending all that user data back to the Facebook mothership...

In its ongoing quest to protect user privacy, Apple just told Facebook to pull Onavo Protect from its App Store. more

Business Espionage: Fish Settlement Flounders

National Fish & Seafood and Kathleen A. Scanlon, the former employee the seafood processor is suing for allegedly stealing trade secrets for her new employer, had appeared to be heading for a settlement.

Now, not so much.

The Gloucester-based seafood processor last week amended its complaint against Scanlon, its former head of research and development and quality assurance, and her new employer, Tampa Bay Fisheries, by adding more defendants and more details of the alleged conspiracy and corporate theft.

The complaint accuses Scanlon of spending most of her final days at NFS feverishly downloading company trade secrets and emails onto two portable storage devices, video-recording the clam processing line and "granting Tampa Bay's IT director unauthorized access to NFS' computers through remote access software."

The filing includes screen grabs of text conversations from Scanlon's company-issued smart phone, including one from Scanlon to Paterson that read: "I am on my way will be there in 30 minutes. Feel like I need to go to confession. More like a hypocrite."

It also states that on July 10, Scanlon was observed on video surveillance and by other NFS employees "taking video and photographic recordings of the clam production process, including the machinery and ingredient-mixing processes used in producing NFS' clam products, including its Matlaw's Stuffed Clams."

The next day, according to NFS, Scanlon resigned after more than 20 years with the company. more

Business Espionage: Quote of the Week

"We must recognize that we now live in an era of uneven, ruthless, state-sponsored global competition. Many executives do not understand the totality of the new forces they are forced to deal with." ~T. Casey Fleming  more 

Auction: Apple I on the Block

A piece of computer history that helped launch a trillion dollar company is hitting the auction block.

A fully functioning Apple-1 being auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction in September is one of only 60 or so remaining of the original 200 that were designed and built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and 1977...

The Apple 1 originally sold for about $666. It could get $300,000 or more at auction. more

2018 ERII Annual Counterespionage Conference Espionage Research Institute International (ERII)

ERII today announced registration for the 2018 Annual ERII Counterespionage Conference, a gathering of worldwide technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM), counterintelligence and counterespionage professionals, is now open to ERII members and non-members. The conference will be held September 20-22, 2018, at the Embassy Suites Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia. Three-day, two-day and single-day conference tickets are available to ERII members and non-members. Special government ticket pricing is also available. more

Sperm Bank Espionage Case Moves Forward

via Ellen Trachman 
Who are these sperm bank spies, and what secrets are they accused of stealing?

The area of assisted reproductive technology doesn’t just involve difficult family law questions. It also involves intrigue! Did you know that sperm banks have trade secrets that are closely guarded? Apparently, they do. And they are now the subject of a fierce lawsuit between Seattle Sperm Bank and Cryobank America.

Earlier this month, a Washington federal court made a ruling in the case, in which it denied in part, and granted in part, Cryobank America’s motion to dismiss. The court granted the motion to dismiss on a vague claim of unfair competition under Washington law. But it denied the motion — and let the lawsuit proceed, in other words — on two other claims: a federal claim under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, and a state claim under the Washington Uniform Trade Secrets Act. more

Salted Peanuts: Spy News Clips

Denny Hatch: All your emails are being stolen and sold all over the world. (a must read) more
---Israel-based Bosco, an app that lets parents monitor their children’s smartphone activities, has raised $4 million in a Series A funding round... more
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A woman’s encounter with a man accused of spying on her 12-year-old daughter is going viral. Salt Lake City police arrested 36-year-old Jorge Leon-Alfaro, Saturday, after witnesses said he tried to record the girl from an adjacent dressing room stall inside the Rue 21 store at Brickyard Plaza. The girl’s mother tracked the man down and recorded her comments toward him as she waited for police to arrive. more
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Israeli researchers attached a surveillance device onto a seagull's leg in order to track its route. During its flight, the innocent bird landed in Tripoli where locals caught it and transferred the bird to the authorities on suspicion of spying for Israel; The ornithologist who attached the device: 'Let the bird live and set it free.' more
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Ufologist Scott Waring has published photographs of a UFO spying on deer peacefully grazing. An interesting phenomenon happened in the U.S. in Mississippi. more
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SC - An upstate couple is under investigation after Greenville County Deputies say a camera was discovered in a room they rent out to the public through Airbnb. more
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Scotland - Scientists eavesdrop on disappearing sea trout. They have positioned a total of 40 acoustic receivers at various locations around Loch Laxford, near Scourie, on the far north-west coast. more
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Austria’s far-right ordered a raid on its own intelligence service. Now allies are freezing the country out. more
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Mozilla has removed 23 Firefox add-ons that spy on user activity. more
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WA - A judge has awarded a couple $1 million in damages after they sued a former lifeguard and city employee who admitted to videotaping women while they used a staff changing area at an aquatic center. more
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South Korean woman given rare jail term for spycam crime. more 
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Secretly filming women in motel rooms or toilet stalls to upload online is a multimillion-dollar business operation in Korea. more
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Study from Vanderbilt professor finds Google tracking is even creepier than you thought. more
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It is remarkably easy to buy “Spy Pens” if you were inclined to record secret conversations at the White House. more (but you knew that :)

Hollywood Spy News

Let’s get this out of the way first.
As a title, The Spy Who Dumped Me suggests a parody of The Spy Who Loved Me, one of Roger Moore’s outings as James Bond. However, those expectations are misplaced. The Spy Who Dumped Me has little to do with Ian Fleming’s creation or his cinematic representations. Instead, this film is about an ordinary woman whose ex is, well, a spy. more trailer
--- 
Aston Martin is creating a limited edition version of the definitive James Bond car, the 1964 Aston Martin DB5. 

In collaboration with James Bond film producer EON Productions, the automaker will build 25 "Goldfinger DB5s," with a straight-six, 282 horsepower, 3,995cc motor that will allow a top speed of 145 mph and 0 to 60 time of 7.1 seconds.

It will even sport the famous revolving license plate and other gadgets, built by Oscar-winning James Bond effects supervisor Chris Corbould. ...if you can find a spare £2.75 million ($3.5 million) plus tax between the couch cushions, you can have one of your own. more & more
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"Mile 22 a fast-paced spy thriller." more trailer
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Danny Boyle no longer directing James Bond 25, due to 'creative differences'. Sadly, it looks like Daniel Craig's James Bond will need to find another director. more

The Line between Security and Privacy can be a Thin One

At the Zelzate Psychiatric Centre, patients’ conversations in the most secure wing are often eavesdropped. The issue emerges from a report by the Flemish Care Inspectorate, echoed by De Morgen, on Tuesday. Conversations with loved ones, mediators and lawyers are monitored in this way... Various sources instanced surveillance cameras and recordings in private rooms, where patients meet their families... The report stipulates, “Conversations between patients and visitors can be eavesdropped and routinely are.” more

Throwing Money at Cyber Security Solutions is a False Economy

Andy Miles via Finextra...
With the option to wield large budgets in the fight against cyber crime there is, however, a tendency for financial service IT leaders to be drawn to the latest, shiniest technology solution of the moment...

What needs real investment, and not necessarily in cash terms is the trinity of People, Process and Technology (PPT). A security vulnerability can appear in any element of the business and a holistic approach that covers all colleagues and operations is vital for a good active defensive strategy.

Technology cannot answer all issues and won’t always work together with the culture and processes already instilled in an organization.

That is why it is so important to have a holistic approach that encompasses a security-first culture, enables constant review of processes and understands the importance of investment in technologies that evolve to combat emerging vulnerabilities and threats. more

Corporate Espionage: GM Skunks Ford

When you think of corporate espionage, you think of documents exchanging hands in dark parking garages, or hackers breaking into company mainframes. But GM is better than all that, and instead opted to walk in the front door in their attempts to best the Ford F-150, the best-selling truck in America. That meant GM engineers joining public factory tours of Ford’s Dearborn plant.

The engineers studied Ford’s production methods and said, yeah, we can do better. ... armed with stopwatches and trained eyes, the GM engineers believed they saw problems.



“They had a real hard time getting those doors to fit,” Tim Herrick, the executive chief engineer for GM truck programs told Reuters. His team did more intelligence gathering. They bought and tore apart Ford F-series doors sold as repair parts. Their conclusion... more

The idea of giving plant tours ended years ago, just for this reason. It has been 32 years since you could watch a freakin' corn flake being made. If you give plant tours, STOP. ~Kevin

1986 - "They have stopped the public tours at the Kellogg Company...
The company says it had no choice. Spies from rival manufacturers were sneaking in with the tourists, it said. In fact, according to Joseph M. Stewart, a vice president, engineers from a foreign competitor took the tour 20 times before setting up a rival manufacturing operation." more

Eavesdropping and Wiretapping History

In July 1956, the Pennsylvania Bar Association Endowment (PBAE) commissioned a comprehensive study of "wiretapping practices, laws, devices, and techniques" in the United States. At the time, Pennsylvania was one of several jurisdictions in the country without a statute regulating eavesdropping. Members of the PBAE's Board believed that a nationwide fact-finding mission had the potential to help state lawmakers establish effective policies for police agencies and private citizens. The man appointed to direct the study was Samuel Dash, a prominent Philadelphia prosecutor whose stint as the city's District Attorney had given him a first-hand look at eavesdropping abuses on both sides of the law. Two decades later, while serving as Chief Counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dash would see many of those abuses come full circle...

The result of Dash's efforts was The Eavesdroppers, a 483-page report co-authored with Knowlton and Schwartz.  Rutgers University Press published it as a standalone volume in 1959.   The book uncovered a wide range of privacy infringements on the part of state authorities and private citizens, a much bigger story than the PBAE had anticipated. more (long, in-depth and very interesting) 

TSCM is Technical Surveillance Countermeasures - Beware of Imitations

 
TSCM from the Yellow Pages.

TSCM from IBM.

TSCM live from New York.

TSCM from the International Association of Professional Security Consultants (iapsc.org), or here.

Facial Recognition Technology – Not Ready for PRIME Time

Amazon.com’s facial recognition tools incorrectly identified Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and 27 other members of Congress as people arrested for a crime during a test commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the watchdog said Thursday...Amazon’s so-called Rekognition technology — already in use at law-enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando — is hampered by inaccuracies... more

Security Scrapbook Flashback to 2008.

Cree CEO: 'All technology companies' face espionage

Cree CEO Gregg Lowe said Tuesday that “all technology companies face the same thing” when it comes to the need to protect trade secrets.

“Every day, they are making changes to help protect and secure their technology and I think we’re no different than anybody else,” he said at Triangle Business Journal's Power Breakfast at PNC Arena.

“I think all companies face these challenges. You’ve got technology, you’ve got capability and people want to come after it.”

A former Cree employee, Coy Bell, is alleged to have stolen trade secrets worth millions by downloading classified files onto an SD card, according to a report. more

Samsung's Galaxy S7 Alert - Meltdown

Samsung's Galaxy S7 smartphones have a security flaw that could allow hackers to spy on tens of millions of users.

The smartphone, owned by more than 30 million people, contains a compromised microchip which would enable cybercriminals to exploit a flaw called Meltdown.

Meltdown was uncovered earlier this year and only affects chips designed by Intel. It is believed to have existed in devices dating back 20 years, but was disclosed to chip makers Intel, ARM and AMD in 2017.

Potentially, it could allow hackers to bypass the barrier in hardware between applications and a computer’s memory, allowing them to steal passwords. more

Dearest, I am formerly Spy Chief of Nigeria and need your assistance to move...

Nigeria's head of the intelligence service has been fired after security services staged a brief "takeover" of parliament in the capital Abuja, at a time when President Muhammadu Buhari is out of the country.

Hooded armed men from the police and Department of State Service (DSS) blocked access to the two chambers - the Senate and House of Representatives - on Tuesday morning, preventing lawmakers, workers, journalists and other visitors from entering. more

The War Against Tiny Spy Cameras in South Korea - TSCM Police Activity

In response to a growing outcry, teams organized by the police have sprung into action. Armed with infrared scanners that can spot a lens and devices that detect electrical charges, they spend hours hunting for cameras* installed by peeping Toms in changing rooms and public bathrooms...

Although concerns about spy cams and illicit filming are far from new in South Korea — the activity was dubbed “molka” years ago — the problem appears to be growing. The number of suspected perpetrators identified by police rose from 1,354 in 2011 to 5,363 in 2017; more than 95 percent were men... 

Police identified more than 26,000 victims of illicit filming between 2012 and 2016, over 80 percent of them female. But many never find out they are victims: The real number “would be 10 times higher than the police figure” if the full extent were known, said Oh Yoon-sung, a criminology professor at Soon­chunhyang University... more

* 20% off.

Anatomy of a Bankruptcy

CA - The Gardena-based parent company of the retail chains Fallas and Anna’s Linens said Monday it filed for bankruptcy reorganization and plans to close 74 of its 344 stores. National Stores Inc., a family-owned firm, operates in 22 states and Puerto Rico...

National Stores said the bankruptcy filing was due to certain under-performing stores and severe weather in various regions that hurt sales.

In addition, the company suffered a data breach in the second half of last year in which some customers’ payment-card information was exposed at dozens of stores, and as a result “access to operating funds diminished” for the company, National Stores said. more

Three reasons for the failure, in the order stated:

1. Under-performing stores.
2. Severe weather.
3. Data breach diminished operating funds.

Number One is manageable. 
Number Two is vague. 
Number Three is a killer.
The list should be reversed, to show order of importance order.

Takeaway... Information security (from IT to TSCM) can make or break any business.

This Week in Spy News

US - The July arrest and indictment of Maria Butina, a 29-year-old Russian woman accused of being a spy, sent shockwaves through Washington and left the political world wondering where she had come from. Her Instagram page showed a glimpse of what her life looked like in Russia while she was allegedly "laying the groundwork" to move to the United States and conduct high-level espionage on behalf of the Russian government. more

UK- SPY chiefs are to develop futuristic technology that will predict when and where terrorist attacks will take place. They are pumping millions into a project called “Unblinking Eye” to identify and keep watch on people who pose a security threat. A new cutting-edge system will monitor and analyse human behaviour and help security services act before an outrage is committed. It mirrors the sci-fi movie Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, where cops use psychic technology to arrest murderers before they strike. more

US - A suspected Russian spy was employed for more than a decade at the US Embassy in Moscow before being fired last year, a senior administration official tells CNN. The woman, a Russian national, worked for the US Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion during one of the State Department regional security office's routine security reviews in 2016, the official said. The security office found the woman was having regular, unauthorized meetings with the Russian intelligence service, the FSB. more

US - Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office was infiltrated by a Chinese spy who worked as her driver and attended official functions on her behalf for 20 years, according to new reports from Politico and The San Francisco Chronicle.

US - An engineer employed by General Electric Co. was arrested by the FBI and charged with using sophisticated techniques to steal digital files on the company's turbine technology to benefit his interest in Chinese companies that compete with GE... The federal criminal complaint says that in 2014, Zheng "downloaded more than 19,000 files from GE's computer network onto an external storage device, believed by GE investigators to have been a personal thumb drive." Federal authorities said that Zheng is a U.S. citizen and also holds citizenship in China. more

S. Korea - The country is in the grip of what's been described as a spy camera epidemic. Hidden cameras capture women - and sometimes men - undressing, going to the toilet, or even in changing rooms in clothing stores, gyms and swimming pools. The videos are posted online on pop-up pornography sites. Activists in Seoul now warn that unless more is done to prevent it, this type of crime is likely to spread to other countries and will prove difficult to stop. more (Too late. It already has.)

US - A local handyman has been charged with spying on his customers’ personal lives by installing hidden cameras in homes where he had done work. Alton police arrested Peter Mugford and charged him with five felony counts of unlawful wiretapping, two counts of burglary, violation of privacy, and stalking... Mugford allegedly used his profession as a contractor/handyman to get access to client homes and place hidden cameras in bedrooms, bathrooms, and other private areas of the home. Mugford would then return to the homes without the owners knowledge or consent to retrieve cameras and footage. more

...and The Hollywood Reports submits its Top 10 Best Spy Comedies list. See if you concur. My pick for #1 is Top Secret.

A Spycam Backlash in South Korea

South Korea - Thousands of women wearing red shirts endured the suffocating heat... to protest against the illegal filming of women...

According to South Korean police, a total of 5,363 hidden camera crimes occurred last year*, and similar crimes are still occurring.

Last month, a high school boy was caught filming in a girl’s restroom. Separately, a man in his 30s who sold 2,845 videos illegally filmed in public restrooms was caught as well...

Hidden camera cases coming up over and over again has forced women to become more cautious about using public restrooms. They have come up with ways to spot hidden cameras, such as filling in any holes they find in restrooms and turning off all the lights in bathrooms to check for camera lights.

The organizers, who asked reporters not to ask demonstrators any questions, let their chants and pickets do the talking.
The first protest of the "Inconvenient Courage" kicked off in May, drawing more than 10,000 protestors. And the second and third protests drew another 15,000 and 18,000, respectively.

Saturday's protests, according to the organizers, nearly quadrupled those numbers. more

* This is only the discovered and reported incidents. Most are never discovered.

Corporate Espionage Alert: Deep Portrait Videos – Not Just a Government Problem

The bad actors have stepped up their game with perhaps the most potentially devastating cyber ruse of all – the high-tech “Deepfake” videos...

Deepfake videos are the residue of new internet technology that supplies almost anyone the ability to alter reality so that subjects can be manipulated to say anything the hacker wants, from the ludicrous and inflammatory to the downright incriminating...appears so real it is almost impossible to spot the bogus video.

The potential security impact of these altered videos has both the federal government and the U.S. Intelligence community on high alert...

“This started several years ago with fake videos and then it turned into Deepfake videos and it’s currently progressing to deep portrait videos,” says Bob Anderson, who is a Principal in The Chertoff Group’s global Strategic Advisory Services and a former national security executive and former Executive Assistant Director with the FBI...


“This is a potentially huge national security threat for a variety of reasons. Picture telecommunication calls or video conference calls that an adversary could potentially interject a fake deep portrait video of a three-star general or CEO of a company directing members of that company or organization to partake in potential detrimental national security or criminal actions,” Anderson says. “Nation-states like Russia, China and Iran could potentially utilize this technology for a variety of counterintelligence, corporate espionage, economic espionage and political influence campaigns across the United States.” more

More Security Cameras Vulnerable to Spying

A popular wireless security camera designed to safeguard businesses and homes was vulnerable to a spying hack.

The flaw meant it was possible to hijack video and audio streamed from other people's properties by making a minor tweak to Swann Security's app.

Researchers found the problem after the BBC reported a case where one customer had received another's recordings.

Australia-based Swann and OzVision - the Israeli provider of its cloud tech - said the issue had now been fixed.

Swann said that the vulnerability had been limited to one model - the SWWHD-Intcam, also known as the Swann Smart Security Camera - which first went on sale in October 2017. Retailers including Maplin, Currys, Debenhams, Walmart and Amazon have sold them.

However, there are concerns that other companies' cameras supported by OzVision could have problems. more

It is argued that the company offers cloud service to around three million smart cameras and users rely upon its app to connect to their IoT devices, and if anyone can gain access to live stream then all the smart cameras stand at risk. These include the Flir FX smart camera and other brands apart from Swann. The problem lies in the tunnel protocol that is responsible for verifying is a particular viewer is authorized to access the live stream or not.  more

Dad Charged With Felony Eavesdropping - Phone Ownership Irrelevant

MI - An Antrim County man faces two felony charges after authorities said he recorded conversations between his ex-wife and his 12-year-old daughter for nearly three years...

Carlson, who has custody of his daughter ... had been using a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) setting to record all telephone calls associated with his cellphone number, according to a report from the Michigan State Police.

Investigators contend Carlson let his daughter use the phone so she could talk to her mother, Kellie Poehner, who lives in Genesee County, but did not inform Poehner or his daughter that he was recording the calls, nor did he ask for their consent. Both believed the conversations were private, the report said.

Carlson is suspected of emailing some of the recordings in March to John Poehner, who is married to Kellie Poehner. That alleged action prompted an investigation that led to the distribution and dissemination charge... more

Silicon Valley – Den of Spies

Foreign spies have been showing up uninvited, to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a very long time.

According to former U.S. intelligence officials, that’s true today more than ever. In fact, they warn—especially because of increasing Russian and Chinese aggressiveness, and the local concentration of world-leading science and technology firms—there’s a full-on epidemic of espionage on the West Coast right now. And even more worrisome, many of its targets are unprepared to deal with the growing threat.

Unlike on the East Coast, foreign intel operations here aren’t as focused on the hunt for diplomatic secrets, political intelligence or war plans. The open, experimental, cosmopolitan work and business culture of Silicon Valley in particular has encouraged a newer, “softer,” “nontraditional” type of espionage, said former intelligence officials—efforts that mostly target trade secrets and technology.

“It’s a very subtle form of intelligence collection that is more business connected and oriented,” one told me. But this economic espionage is also ubiquitous. Spies “are very much part of the everyday environment” here, said this person. Another former intelligence official told me that, at one point recently, a full 20 percent of all the FBI’s active counterintelligence-related intellectual property cases had originated in the Bay Area. (The FBI declined to comment for this story.) more

Auction: Some Remarkable Pieces of Telephone History

If you like old school gear that seems like it would kill you if you look at it wrong, well, we have an auction for you.

Click to Enlarge.

Auction Starts

Aug 4, 2018 11am EDT

The Telephone Pioneers of America was a group founded by various employees and bigwigs at telecom companies back in 1911. Alexander Graham Bell, the man Americans are often taught invented the telephone, was an early member.

At first, it was a way to create a community around the various people who pioneered the tech of telephony, then it shifted to a philanthropic mission. These days, it functions as a network of volunteers that help out in their community. Along the way, the non-profit set up a bunch of little museums around the U.S. dedicated to preserving old equipment and ephemera related to the history of the telephone.

Now, two of those branches are closing and you can buy their goods in an auction online or IRL on August 4th. Bruneau & Co, an auction house based in Cranston, Rhode Island, will handle the bidding. more

How Not to Write Your Name Electronically on Your Hotel Room Door

Reprint of LinkedIn post by Brian Creter...

"At my hotel last week in Los Angeles, I walked up and down my hallway and was able to identify multiple hotel guests who used their full and very unique legal names on their phones, which shows on personal wifi hotspots (see below). 

 

This is essentially like writing your name on a stickie and putting on your hotel door, or wearing a name tag while sitting in the airport. Range is typically 25 to 50 ft. so you can usually narrow down to one of several rooms. 

 

Go to Settings > General > About > Name OR change in iTunes. Also, remove any info that identifies the device (i.e. iPhone, iPad, etc.)."