Ford's Anti-Eavesdropping Tech Is Straight Out Of A Spy Movie

As in-car Zoom meetings become a reality, Ford wants to protect occupants from eavesdroppers.

Ford has filed a patent for a new motor vehicle workspace with enhanced privacy, effectively preventing eavesdroppers from listening to calls you take in your car. CarBuzz discovered the patent, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and while it may sound like some James Bond-like technology, it's simply a way to ensure that your conversations aren't being listened to by passersby and other occupants in the vehicle.

As we move closer to higher levels of autonomous driving, the occupants of a car will need something to pass the time. That's why several new vehicles are equipped with teleconferencing facilities. It may sound silly, but don't forget we now live in a world where a Mercedes-Benz E-Class comes standard with TikTok and a selfie camera. more

Employee Exposed Himself to Espionage by Seeking Sex Parlours

A Canada Border Service Agency employee opened himself up to the threat of exploitation by "hostile intelligence services" after visiting massage parlours in China, Japan and Canada, documents obtained by CBC News reveal.

The case is just one of more than 500 allegations the CBSA deemed "founded" last year and released as part of an access to information request.

According to the redacted file, the employee — who is not named in the document — allegedly engaged in illegal activities "by purchasing sexual services from massage parlours in Japan, China and Canada." more

Update: Court Grants Exec Bail in Industrial Espionage Case

A South Korean court has granted bail to a former executive of Samsung Electronics accused of stealing sensitive information developed by the technology giant, court records showed on Tuesday.

In a case that underscores the country's efforts to crack down on industrial espionage, prosecutors have alleged that the former executive Choi Jinseog, a South Korean chip expert, stole information formulated by the world's top memory chipmaker to help his client set up a chip factory in China. more

BlackBerry - The Best Movie Of 2023?

The True Story Thriller That’s Being Called The Best Movie Of The Year... Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry, managed to make a small but noticeable splash at the box office, resulting in a stunning 98 percent certified fresh critic score from Rotten Tomatoes...

Though the film’s premise may not immediately strike you as rife with thrilling storytelling potential, BlackBerry manages to take the high-intensity world of tech development, corporate espionage, and the true tale of one corporation’s rise and incredible fall to its absolute limits.

Those who lived through the era of BlackBerry phones being the must-have product on the market will look back at the moment in history with a newfound sense of awe after seeing the film, while those too young to recall the ubiquity of the full-keyboard phone will be shocked and appalled by the underhanded business practices which brought mobile internet to the next level. more

ChatGPT Is Apparently a Great Surveillance Tool

This week, Forbes reported that a Russian spyware company called Social Links had begun using ChatGPT to conduct sentiment analysis. The creepy field by which cops and spies collect and analyze social media data to understand how web users feel about stuff, sentiment analysis is one of the sketchier use-cases for the little chatbot to yet emerge.

Social Links, which was previously kicked off Meta’s platforms for alleged surveillance of users, showed off its unconventional use of ChatGPT at a security conference in Paris this week. The company was able to weaponize the chatbot’s ability for text summarization and analysis to troll through large chunks of data, digesting it quickly. 

In a demonstration, the company fed data collected by its own proprietary tool into ChatGPT; the data, which related to online posts about a recent controversy in Spain, was then analyzed by the chatbot, which rated them “as positive, negative or neutral, displaying the results in an interactive graph,” Forbes writes.

Obviously, privacy advocates have found this more than a little disturbing... more

How an Indian Startup Hacked the World

Appin was a leading Indian cyberespionage firm that few people even knew existed. 

A Reuters investigation found that the company grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe. 

Appin alumni went on to form other firms that are still active...

Chuck Randall was on the verge of unveiling an ambitious real estate deal he hoped would give his small Native American tribe a bigger cut of a potentially lucrative casino project.

A well-timed leak derailed it all.

In July of 2012, printed excerpts from Randall’s private emails were hand-distributed across the Shinnecock Nation’s square-mile reservation, a wooded peninsula hanging off the South Fork of Long Island...  more

Smart Toys Spying on Children

Smart toys are becoming more common, and an increase in concerns about them spying on children has coincided with that, according to a new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund.

In its Trouble in Toyland" report released Thursday, the organization explained that smart toys "can incorporate various technologies, like cameras, microphones and sensors, as well as artificial intelligence capabilities and connectivity through the internet or Bluetooth." It specifically flagged some risks that it said parents and their children could see arise. more
How We Got This Way - The effect of kids being influenced by their spy toys.

Why You Really Need a Technical Information Security Consultant

The non-existence of a trade secret asset: ‘confidential’ information
by R. Mark Halligan 

FisherBroyles LLP

For years, there has been a debate whether “confidential” information is analogous to a “trade secret.” It is not. Information is either protected as a “trade secret” or not protected as a “trade secret.” Any other characterization of “confidential” information undermines the protection of trade secret assets and interferes with lawful and fair business competition.

There is no such thing as non-trade secret “confidential” information.

There is no such thing as “confidential” information that does not rise to the level of a trade secret.

There is no middle ground: Either the information is a “trade secret” (and protectable) or not a trade secret (and not protectable).

A “trade secret” is an intellectual property asset that requires reasonable measures to protect the information as a “trade secret” and proof that such information derives an actual or potential economic advantage from the secrecy of the information. more

Your business is based on information and conversations considered confidential, sensitive, or intellectual property. These create your competitive advantage. No less important than trade secrets, and yet, not protected under trade secret law. 

So, what protection do you have? 

Start by adding a Technical Information Security Consultant to your team. Their proactive surveys can spot espionage issues like electronic eavesdropping, information security risks, and employee compliance with information security policies—before they become losses.

Professor Accused of Wiretapping Other Professors

LA - Officers of the University of Louisiana Monroe Police Department initiated an investigation due to a wiretapping complaint on campus. During the investigation, authorities learned that a professor for the University of Louisiana Monroe, along with his graduate assistant, located two small recording devices around their office doors.

According to the affidavit, the devices were being held in place by a substance. The ULM professor was in his office when one of the devices fell on the floor. The second device was found after the graduate assistant searched the door area of the office.

ULM Police then stationed themselves and conducted surveillance, identifying the suspect as Chad Allen Lewing, who is also a professor at the university. On November 8, 2023, at 5:30 AM, Lewing was detained by authorities while allegedly attempting to remove the devices.

Police learned that Lewing arrived at work two hours early and he was the only person in the building, besides two ULM police officers. Lewing was transported to the university’s police station and refused to talk with authorities...

Officers went on to find two more devices in the office spaces of two other ULM professors. more

This find was based on luck. Surveillance devices rarely just fall on the floor in front of you. Smart businesses and educational institutions hire technical information security consultants to periodically conduct searches for electronic surveillance devices. Learn more about that at counterespionage.com.

AirTags: The New Go-to Tool for Cops

After a viral TikTok trend spurred tens of thousands of car thefts this summer, cops in Washington, DC, started realizing that it was much easier to recover stolen vehicles that could be tracked with Apple AirTags.

Because of this, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) rolled out a pilot program this week, doling out free tracking devices to residents in DC areas where cops are seeing "the greatest increase in vehicle theft," according to a press release from the office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. more

Court: Automakers Can Record & Intercept Owner Text Messages

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuit alleging four auto manufacturers had violated Washington state’s privacy laws by using vehicles’ on-board infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ private text messages and mobile phone call logs.

The Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are defendants in five related class action suits focused on the issue. One of those cases, against Ford, had been dismissed on appeal previously. more

NJ Jury Finds Attorney Illegally Recorded Ex-Son-In-Law

A New Jersey jury on Tuesday found that a law professor illegally wiretapped her ex-son-in-law and invaded his privacy, awarding him $361,000 in damages, but also found that he painted her in a false light in social media posts alleging she framed him for a crime. more

NSA Unveils "Artificial Intelligence Security Center"

The National Security Agency is establishing a new “Artificial Intelligence Security Center” to help spur on the secure development and adoption of AI capabilities, and defend AI advancements from foreign adversaries.

NSA Director and Cyber Command chief Gen. Paul Nakasone broke the news during an event at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“The AI Security Center will become NSA’s focal point for leveraging foreign intelligence insights, contributing to the development of best practices guidelines, principles, evaluation methodology, and risk frameworks for AI security, with an end goal of promoting the secure development, integration, and adoption of AI capabilities within our national security systems and our defense industrial base,” Nakasone said...

The news about the center comes as the NSA also plans to establish a new “innovation pipeline” focused on China. more

Weekend Read: “Spymaster’s Prism: The Fight Against Russian Aggression”

November 1, 2023

by  Jack Devine  (Author)

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars      73 ratings

I am pleased to announce that the paperback edition of my second book “Spymaster’s Prism: The Fight Against Russian Aggression” comes out today.

When the book was first published in the middle of the pandemic in 2021, there was only an emergent acknowledgement of the real threat posed by Russian "active measures" and espionage to Western interests. Though I devoted an entire section to Ukraine called "New Berlin", I could not have foretold how much the world would change only a year later, on 24 February 2022...

I hope that the release of the paperback of "Spymaster's Prism: The Fight Against Russian Aggression" will give you an opportunity to discover or revisit a thorough accounting of the Russian intelligence services relentless and unending campaign against the West and what we must continue to do to arrest it. Good Hunting! 

The CIA Teaches You How to Speak Like a Spy

Spy Speak Glossary 

You might walk the walk, but can you talk the talk? 

Being a spy is more than just the gadgets and the disguises. To be successful in the field, you need to speak like a spy. 

So, before you head out on your next mission, or write the next great American spy novel, take some time to familiarize yourself with our Spy Speak glossary.

Example: Rolled-up - when an undercover operation goes bad and is raided by opposing forces, resulting in agents or assets being arrested.

Shady Things You Can Do With a Flipper Zero

Since it’s evil week at Lifehacker, let’s take a look at a gadget that can be used for mild evil: the Flipper Zero. Despite its toy-like looks, this pocket-friendly multitool can be used for all kinds of hacking and penetration testing. 

It gives anyone, even newbs, an easy-to-understand way to interact with the invisible waves that surround us, whether they’re RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, wifi, or radio. It’s a like a hacker Swiss army knife that you can buy for less than $200.

You can use a Flipper Zero to control your TV, cheat your Nintendo, replace your work ID, open your hotel room door, and more. I’m sure you could see where the “evil” part could comes in. But on the other hand, it’s just a tool, and its ability to commit crimes is... more

Flipper Zero – Corporate Security Threat

Utah Lawyer Charged with Voyeurism...

...after employees find video of bathroom camera...

A lawyer in Vernal has been charged with stalking and voyeurism after

claims he installed a camera in a bathroom in his law office... Investigators in Uintah County first responded to a report from Judd’s employees who said they discovered printed pornography photos and a memory cards in a folder in office personnel files, according to court documents. Documents state an employee viewed the files on one of the SD cards and found a video of Judd placing a camera inside an employee bathroom ceiling vent.

There were also recordings of women employed by Judd using the bathroom. When the recordings were recovered, employees examined the vent in the video but found the camera had been removed, according to documents...

The same employee said that one duty she performed at work was to order items for Judd on an Amazon account they both had access to. “The account history showed that several small spy cameras had been ordered beginning February 2021, and continuing through that year,” documents state. more

Is This a Bug?

This question comes from Reddit, where someone answered correctly.

We have a collection of many other "Is This a Bug?" photos and explanations.

Also, what to do if you think you found a bug.

World Spy News Roundup

PA - A Pittsburgh police commander previously placed on leave while officials investigated allegations he spied on colleagues has retired. Matthew Lackner, who had previously overseen the police bureau’s Zone 2 station in the Hill District, retired Tuesday, according to spokeswoman Cara Cruz. Mr. Lackner was placed on paid administrative leave earlier this month. A police source familiar with the incident said the commander was accused of putting a body-worn camera in an officer’s patrol vehicle to spy on the officer. more

Australia - Robot vacuums don’t just collect dust — they can also collect data of their surroundings, sending it back to external servers, experts at The Australian Information Security Association (AISA) warned on Tuesday. more

China - China restricts foreign travel by bankers, state workers to curb spying... According to two analysts who spoke to the media, the moves reflect President Xi Jinping’s attention to national security in the midst of tense relations with the West. more

CA - The Five Eyes countries' intelligence chiefs came together on Tuesday to accuse China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying against the nations, in a rare joint statement by the allies. more

TX - It seems everything truly is bigger here in Texas, including the drama of partner snooping and infidelity! Recent data has exposed Texas as one of the leading states where the lines between privacy and suspicion are blurrier than ever. Relationship and sex expert Beth Darling joins the factor to talk about the data. more

USA - Ethical hacker helps prevent a potential espionage disaster for CIA. A glitch on X, formerly known as Twitter, could have opened a can of worms for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had an ethical hacker on the microblogging website not sprung to action. more

Donald Trump is suing a private investigations firm over "shocking and scandalous" claims that he engaged in "perverted sexual acts" in Russia. The former US president is taking legal action against Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based company co-founded by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, over a dossier containing rumours about him that caused a storm before his 2017 presidential inauguration. more

Survey - 53% of employees in the Middle East, Turkiye, and Africa region fear spying from drones... Corporate spies and hackers use drones to get trade secrets, confidential information, and other sensitive data from corporations and data centers. A drone can carry a device for hacking into corporate networks – for instance, a smartphone, a compact computer (e.g., Raspberry Pi), or a signal interceptor (e.g., Wi-Fi Pineapple [1]), and hackers use these devices to access corporate data and disrupt communications. All wireless communication (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RFID, etc.) is vulnerable to drone attacks. more

Finland - Dead man's estate and firm fined €5m in shipyard espionage case. A man who worked for the Meyer Turku shipyard copied files from the shipyard and a shipping company onto a hard drive and transferred them to his own consulting firm – but then died while the investigation was underway. more

VA - It could be years before Appian, a software company, sees a dollar of the $2 billion judgment it was awarded last year in a corporate espionage case against rival Pegasystems. more

IN - Parents Attack Little League Umpire after children say he was taking photos of them in bathroom. A Little League umpire is facing charges for allegedly taking photos of children in the bathroom... Deputies in Warrick County said they were called to an area baseball field because of reports that parents were fighting an umpire. Authorities said the parents told them the brawl started because their children came running out of the bathroom screaming that Custer had taken photos of them. more

Yet Another USB Cautionary Tale

Duped with a malicious USB...

Mr Burgess (ASIO Director General Mike Burgess) referenced an unnamed Australian company that found global success making a product "similar to a motion detector" before their sales suddenly dropped.

"A little while later, their product started being returned to the factory because they were broken," he said.

"When they opened their branded products, they discovered they weren't their branded products, because the components were inferior, they were exact knock-offs."

The problem was eventually traced to an international conference, where someone had offered to share information with one of the company's employees by plugging a USB into their laptop.

"That USB downloaded malware onto that laptop, which later on, when they were connected back to their corporate network, was used to steal their intellectual property," he said.

"That intellectual property was passed from the intelligence services to state-owned enterprise that mass-produced the goods and sold them on the market that undercut them." more

More USB Security Information...

 • USB – Hacked Charging Cables

• USB – Malicious Spy Cable Detector Instructions

• USB – General Memory Stick Warning

• USB – Malicious Cables

• USB – NSA Type Cable Bug – $6.74

Extra USB Spy News - Government entities in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are the target of a long-running cyber espionage campaign dubbed TetrisPhantom. "The attacker covertly spied on and harvested sensitive data from APAC government entities by exploiting a particular type of secure USB drive, protected by hardware encryption to ensure the secure storage and transfer of data between computer systems," Kaspersky said in its APT trends report for Q3 2023. more

The CARVER Mindset: How to Think Like a Spy - FREE

Luke Bencie (Mr. Carver Mindset), is a really smart guy. His book, Among Enemies: Counter-Espionage for the Business Traveler which first introduced me to him is excellent. Check out his other books, too. His Monday morning emails are always inspiring. I look forward to receiving them. Great way to start the week. The sign-up is at the bottom of this page.

I attended Carvercon 2022 at the University of South Florida and was impressed by the entire event. You can see this year’s event on-line, at no charge…

CARVERCON 2023 is coming November 1st (Day of the Dead). 

This year's theme is The CARVER Mindset: How to Think Like a Spy 

(CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR FREE!)

Smartphone Security: Delete These Apps

Smartphone owners have been urged to remove certain apps that could be spying on their activity.

Some of the most popular apps you love and have come to rely on could be posing more of a danger than they're worth. Here's what you need to know. ...some of those apps that you love and have come to rely on could actually be putting you at risk... We’ve (Reader's Digest) collected information about some of the worst offenders so that you can make an educated decision about which apps you trust with your privacy and which ones need to go...

CamScanner
Ana Bera is a cybersecurity expert with Safe at Last. She identified CamScanner, an app meant to imitate a scanner with your phone, as one of the apps consumers should be concerned about. “Cybersecurity experts have found a malicious component installed in the app that acts as a Trojan Downloader and keeps collecting infected files,” she explains. “This kind of app can seriously damage your phone and should be de-installed instantly. Luckily, once you remove it from your phone, it is highly unlikely that it will continue harming you.”

Weather apps
“Check your weather app,” says Shayne Sherman, CEO of TechLoris. “There have been several different weather apps out there that have been laced with Trojans or other malwares.” While the most benign of these claims to take your information purely for weather accuracy, he calls that questionable. “Watch your local forecast instead, and if you have Good Weather, delete it now,” he advises. “That one is especially dangerous.”

Facebook
Look, we all love our social networking apps. But cybersecurity expert Raffi Jafari, cofounder and creative director of Caveni Digital Solutions, says, “If you are looking for apps to delete to protect your information, the absolute worst culprit is Facebook. The sheer scale of their data collection is staggering, and it is often more intrusive than companies like Google. If you had to pick one app to remove to protect your data, it would be Facebook.”

WhatsApp
“This is a call to action for users who may be living under a rock and unaware of the vulnerabilities that were disclosed earlier this year,” says Michael Covington, VP of Product for mobile security leader Wandera. “The vulnerabilities with WhatsApp—both iOS and Android versions—allowed attackers to target users by simply sending a specially crafted message to their phone number. Once successfully exploited, the attackers would be granted access to the same things WhatsApp had access to, including the microphone, the camera, the contact list, and more.”

Instagram
Whatsapp and Instagram are both owned by Facebook, which is part of what makes them all a risk. Dave Salisbury, director of the University of Dayton Center for Cybersecurity and Data Intelligence, says that Instagram “requests several permissions that include but are not limited to modifying and reading contacts and the contents of your storage, locating your phone, reading your call log, modifying system settings, and having full network access.” Plus Nine More

Stores Silently Deploying Facial Recognition to Spy on Shoppers

Major retailers in the US are already using facial recognition cameras to spy on shoppers, a campaigning group has warned...

Cameras are being used not just to catch persistent shoplifters, but also to monitor shoppers and analyze their emotions, so that stores can deliver personalized adverts on screens inside the store, George warned...

‘But it’s also being used for marketing purposes, they are gathering information on shoppers and seeing what they are buying and not buying - and using AI tools to analyse the emotions of shoppers and see what sort of ads to direct at them.’ more

Intense Competition Leads to Attempted Corporate Espionage

via Lexology - from the Troutman Papper law firm.

Side Note: Troutman Pepper has formed a Corporate Espionage Response Team to help clients combat the increasing incidence of corporate espionage.

Arthur AI, a New York-based AI company, received a request for a Zoom demonstration of its technology from a startup called OneOneThree. The head of technology at OneOneThree, Yan Fung, expressed interest in purchasing Arthur AI’s technology. But there were some immediate red flags.

First, prior to the Zoom meeting, Arthur AI employees recognized that OneOneThree had no website. The Timesarticle says that Fung told Arthur AI at the time that OneOneThree was in “stealth mode,” which is why it had no website. Then, when Arthur AI asked Fung to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA), he reportedly asked Arthur AI to “hold off on the NDA,” and Arthur AI agreed.

Despite these issues, a Zoom meeting was arranged to demo the technology. Fung said Karina Patel, OneOneThree’s “main engineer,” would dial in to the meeting. However, during the Zoom meeting, an attendee logged in under the name of Aparna Dhinakaran, which an Arthur AI employee immediately recognized as a founder of Arize AI, a rival startup. When recognized, the attendee quickly logged off. Arthur AI later deduced that Fung was, in fact, an employee of Arize AI named Dat Ngo, and OneOneThree was an inactive company of his.

After the call concluded, one of Arthur AI’s employees messaged Ngo via LinkedIn direct messaging. Ngo responded by trying to recruit the Arthur AI employee, according to the Times article. more

Lessons Learned:

• Require NDAs Every Time.
• Perform Proper Due Diligence and Act Consistently With Your Findings. 
• Only Use Secure Communication Channels and Restrict Recording.
• Train Employees on Spotting and Responding to Potential Threats.
• Conduct a Prompt and Careful Investigation Into Suspected Activity.

Apple AirTag: Police Official Accused of Stalking

CA - A high-ranking Los Angeles Police Department official has been demoted and is facing the possibility of termination after being accused of stalking a fellow officer with whom he was romantically involved...

The female officer who accused Labrada of stalking contacted Ontario police after she discovered an AirTag — a small tracking device that can be attached to personal items — among her possessions, according to two sources familiar with the case.

A group of officers from a since-disbanded San Fernando Valley gang unit is under investigation for, among other misconduct, allegedly using the devices to track suspects without court authorization...

Ontario police had been investigating the stalking allegations, but the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office said Wednesday it did not have enough evidence to pursue charges against Labrada. more

China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives

Foreign executives are scared to go to China. 

Their main concern: They might not be allowed to leave. 

Beijing’s tough treatment of foreign companies this year, and its use of exit bans targeting bankers and executives, has intensified concerns about business travel to mainland China. Some companies are canceling or postponing trips. Others are maintaining travel plans but adding new safeguards, including telling staff they can enter the country in groups but not alone.

“There is a very significant cautionary attitude toward travel to China,” said Tammy Krings, chief executive of ATG Travel Worldwide, which works with large employers around the world. “I would advise mission-critical travel only.” Krings said she has seen a roughly 25% increase in cancellations or delays of business trips to China by U.S. companies in recent weeks. more

Where The Spies Are

There are about 80 Russian spies in Switzerland, which is about one-fifth of the total number of Russian agents in Europe. Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, citing the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, as reported by European Pravda

Details: European states have been actively countering the Russian intelligence network, expelling employees of Russian embassies since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

However, Switzerland did not resort to such a step due to the long tradition of neutrality. The estimates of the intelligence service, shared with members of parliament in September, indicate that there are currently about 80 Russian agents in the country.

A representative of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs in an interview with NZZ emphasized that the country's government "does not impose any sanctions in the form of expelling diplomats", adding that communication channels with Russia should be preserved. more

Fine... Feathered Drones Now

Boffins create drone that flies exactly like a bird to blend in on spying missions. 

This drone flies exactly like a bird so it blends in on spying missions. The wing-flapping robot mimics the natural flight of its feathered counterparts. The Icelandic company behind it, said it could be for military or private use. Silent Flyer UAV went on display during the DroneX expo at East London’s ExCel centre. It is designed by Icelandic company Flygildi.

Earlier this year we revealed creepily realistic drones made from dead birds were being developed by scientists. more

How New Corporate Espionage Techniques Are Born, or... Their Next App Attack

In a university somewhere (guess where) students are working on this...

"Introduction: Snooping keystrokes (a.k.a., keystroke inference attacks) seriously threaten information security and privacy. 

By launching such an attack, an adversary has an opportunity to steal sensitive information such as accounts, passwords, credit card numbers, SSNs, and conidential (sic) documents[1, 15, 29, 30] from the victims when they are typing on a keyboard. 

Smartphone-based snooping [15, 18, 24] further eases the launching when an adversary could intentionally leave his own smartphone near the victim’s keyboard. 

Furthermore, an attacker could spread a malicious mobile app (e.g., in app markets) that pretends to be a normal audio playing and recording application but stealthily collects user’s keystroke data over the Internet. He may afect (sic) a large volume of smartphones and enable large-scale keystroke inference attacks as shown in Fig. 1..." more

If Ants Can be Tricked, What Chance do Corporations Have?

A cautionary tale for corporations that think they are espionage-proof.

In a study in the journal Science, researchers report that blue butterfly caterpillars infiltrate red ant colonies and grub food by mimicking the raspy sound of the ant queen.

It’s good to be the Queen. You get fed and cared for and generally treated like royalty. But if you’re a blue butterfly caterpillar, you can get the same benefits by just pretending to be queen. Because these crafty caterpillars trick ants into feeding them—by mimicking the sound of their queen.

Ants are social creatures whose colonies contain a queen ant, and hordes of worker ants who feed the queen and take care of all her young. Blue butterfly caterpillars have come up with clever ways to exploit that system. These parasitic caterpillars take up residence in the nests of red ants. And they mooch free meals in part by waggling their heads to beg for food like all the other ant grubs. 

But that’s not all. Scientists using sophisticated recording equipment were able to listen to the caterpillars chatter. And found that the interlopers imitated the sounds of an adult queen. more

• Your company is filled with hard-working, innocent, social creatures.
• Anyone bent on corporate espionage knows they just have to blend in.
• They will listen to your sounds.
• They will exploit your system.
• They will imitate loyalty.
• They will eat your lunch.
• Fight back.

FutureWatch - Robot Eavesdropping Microphone Smart Swarms

by Nick Bil

With the help of modern technology, muting distracting voices in video calls has become a simple process. With just a few clicks, you can silence unwanted background noise and side conversations, ensuring that the primary speaker's message remains clear and uninterrupted. This is largely possible due to the sophisticated audio processing algorithms and noise cancellation features built into video conferencing software...

One can take precautions to minimize background noise and encourage attendees to be considerate, but there is no easy technological solution to separate voices cleanly from a shared physical space. That may change in the near future, however, thanks to a swarm of robotic smart microphones that was recently developed by researchers at the University of Washington. The robots autonomously navigate around a room to distribute themselves optimally, then they run onboard deep learning algorithms to identify and track the position of each individual speaker.

The robots are powered by Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 microcontroller, with a Bluetooth Low Energy module added for wireless communication capabilities. By selecting a sufficiently powerful microcontroller, the algorithms can run on-device, sidestepping any privacy concerns associated with sending a stream of audio to a cloud service. A gyroscope and accelerometer provide odometry information, and a pair of micro motors provide for locomotion. A pair of microphones and a speaker are onboard, and the entire system is powered by a rechargeable LiPo battery.

Each of the circular, wheeled robots is about an inch across. After deployment from a charging station, they all travel in different directions, emitting high frequency sounds to communicate with one another and make sure they are spread out as far as possible from one another. These high-pitched chirps also keep the robots from falling off of tables or bumping into other obstacles.

By feeding audio information into a deep neural network, including the delay in time with which a particular voice arrives at microphones in different positions, the team found that it was possible to locate and track individual speakers in space. And the algorithm proved to be accurate enough to distinguish between speakers, even if they had similar sounding voices and were near to one another. Experiments showed that the present system was able to accurately distinguish between nearby individuals 90% of the time. Importantly, this was accomplished without prior information about the individuals, so no initial training session is required to calibrate the device...

And further down the road yet, they plan to explore incorporating noise-canceling technologies into the robots. That addition could allow them to mute noisy areas in physical locations, producing a sci-fi-like cone of silence. more

Time for an espionage sequel to the movie Runaway (1984)?

Legacy Systems Threaten Security in Mergers & Acquisitions

Here’s a simple fact: Legacy systems are far more likely to get hacked. This is especially true for companies that become involved in private equity transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures...

We have seen two primary trends throughout 2023:

– Threat groups are closely following news cycles, enabling them to quickly target entire portfolios with zero-day attacks designed to upend aging technologies — disrupting businesses and their supply chains.

– Corporate espionage cases are also on the rise as threat actors embrace longer dwell times and employ greater calculation in methods of monetizing attacks. more

Malaysian Police Investigate Spycam Found in Newlywed Couple’s Airbnb

Malaysian police investigate after spycam found in newlywed Chinese couple’s Airbnb room...

The device was installed inside a wall power socket in a room of a lodging establishment in Sabah
The case came to light after the tourists shared their ordeal on Chinese social media

Malaysian police are looking for those responsible for placing a hidden camera within a wall power socket in a room of a lodging establishment in Sabah state where a newlywed Chinese couple had stayed in earlier this month...

A probe had been conducted at the said premises, he said, adding they have seized the spycam in question. more

Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and...

This week, Aaron Stark joins the show to discuss his new book Disrupting Time: Industrial Combat, Espionage, and the Downfall of a Great American Company, which chronicles an attempt by a foreign power to infiltrate, emulate, and eventually annihilate a great American company. 

In the late 19th century, watches were at the forefront of technological innovation, and the Waltham Watch Company made some of the finest watches in the world. Unlike their Swiss competitors, whose products were fancy, handcrafted works of art, the Watham company specialized in mass produced, affordable, and reliable watches for the masses. 

At an 1876 World’s Fair, they announced their arrival on the world’s stage, and the world took notice. The Swiss, in particular, took notice, and they took it by sending spies to steal the secrets of Waltham’s success. more

Secret ‘James Bond’ Tunnels May Become a Tourist Attraction

A subterranean space once used by British spies has been sold to fund manager Angus Murray, who has grand ambitions for it.

A warren of tunnels beneath central London, once used by the spies who inspired the creation of James Bond, has been bought by a fund manager with a £220 million ($269 million) plan to turn them into a tourist attraction “as iconic as the London Eye.” more

World Spy News Roundup

Canada Finds Smoking Gun In Nijjar Killing After Spying On India more

5 Bulgarians charged with espionage | Spying for Russia more

EU tells China spy and sanction laws could spook investors more more

10 Underrated Movies Based on Actual Real-Life Spies more

Spies in America who stole and sold U.S. secrets | 60 Minutes YouTube

Hamas Operative Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for Israel, Lebanese Media Report more

An award-winning London beautician accused of spying for Russia told her customers she had no interest in politics. more more

Ethiopian Contractor Charged For Spying In US more U.S. government contractor was charged with delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government. more

Exclusive Interview With Ukraine’s Spy Boss From His D.C. Hotel Room more

The Spy Inside Your Smartphone more

Norway drops spying claims against foreign student, says he's being held now for a 'financial crime' more