Spybusters Tip # 823 - Two Wiretaps You Can Find Yourself

Imagine this...

• Partners in a business have a falling out, but one of them seems to know everything.

• The founder of a growing company is forced out, but still seems to know everything.

• A divorce is pending. The husband moves out, but still seems to know everything.

Q. "How could this be?"

A. The other person may have purchased a legal wiretap... from the phone company!
(The act of eavesdropping is still illegal, however.)

Q. "What can I do?"

A. Pick up a different phone and search for it.

Call your local phone company business office. Review your account. Specifically, look for an OPX or an FX, which your "partner" may have added.

An OPX is an Off Premise Extension. It is just what it sounds like; an extension phone, located in the same area served by your exchange, but somewhere else.

An FX is a Foreign Exchange. Same as an OPX, but located in some other exchange or area code.

Bonus Spybusters Tip...

Q. Not receiving all you calls? 

Are people leaving voice mail messages, but you never hear them, or they show up late? Check your account for Remote Access to Call Forwarding. This feature allows the other person to redirect your calls, at will, from anywhere, to anywhere. 

Once engaged, they can answer your customer's calls - using your company name, or send them to their own voice mail (using a recording of your voice mail greeting). They may even selectively transfer these intercepted messages back to your voice mail - possibly edited. (Think Mission Impossible).

Double Bonus Spybusters Tip...

Double check the number of phone lines listed as coming to your address. This should exactly match the number of lines you think you have. Any extras? Call a qualified TSCM specialist for a sweep. 

Triple Bonus Spybusters Tip...

Once you have sorted all this out with your local phone company business office, ask them to "flag" your account. This means they will only discuss your account, and make changes, if they are given the correct password. Pick a good password. Don't use "Afganistan Banana Stand," that's mine. Don't tell anyone what your password is.

"Is that a snooper in your pocket, or are you just glad to hear me?"

...via the seller's web site...

Works on wooden walls, doors, windows, steel plates, etc. 

Highly Sensitive, carefully adjust audio slowly, as not to cause discomfort to your ear-buds.

This product is being sold as an investigative tools for law enforcement or licensed investigators. Anyone else ordering this device should only be ordering it as a simple toy since MANY COUNTRIES STRICTLY PROHIBIT OWNERSHIP OF SPY DEVICES. (more)

Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

Lost Tracking Device Found Moonlighting

The Orange County district attorney’s office filed charges Thursday against a former Costa Mesa police officer suspected of hiding a tracking device inside a woman’s vehicle, then showing up at places she would frequent, according to a news release.

Aaron Paul Parsons, 30, was charged with one misdemeanor count of unlawful use of an electronic tracking device. If convicted, he faces a maximum of six months in jail...

After several encounters, the woman became suspicious and checked her car, finding the device apparently belonging to the Costa Mesa Police Department. She immediately reported it to police. (more)

Espionage Bumble, Brilliant Marketing or...

 Drunken idiot employee? You decide.

"You are looking at Apple's next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS." (more, with video)

Cell Phone Spyware - Beware

The Internet ad claims... for $99.95 and 5 minutes of your time, you too can spy on any cell phone in the world! 

Sound too good to be true? Read the hype. You decide.

• Unleash the very latest technology that allows you to spy on any Cell Phone, Laptop or Bluetooth enabled device...

• Not just one program but an entire suite of programs designed to work with old phones, new phones, smart phones, java phones -There is a solution for any phone out there...

• INSTANT DOWNLOAD - PURCHASE RIGHT NOW!

• That means that in as little as 5 minutes you can be checking any phone you want.  

• ...instantly you will be reading your wife's SMS/text messages, listening to your kid's phone conversation, even knowing what your boss or your neighbor is saying. All of this is done in stealth mode. This means they will never know that you are doing this. And this works on ALL phones. Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson, Blackberry, absolutely all of them. This will work in all countries, on all networks.

• "Will I have to install any software on the phone(s) I wish to spy on?"
No. This product only needs to be installed on your phone. (more)

You may also want to read the fine print before pressing that "Download" button. 
Legal Info - Refund Policy

"There is no guarantee that this product will do what it claims to do;" 
"The product, service or membership referenced herein is sold with a no refund policy allowed. All sales are final!" (more)

You've been warned.
Learn more about Cell Phone Privacy here.  ~Kevin

CSI your USB

"We're going to show you how to mimic Microsoft's offering (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) using open-source software to unlock Windows accounts, investigate suspicious activity, see any file on a Windows disk and even peruse files that others believe have been permanently deleted." (more) 

Quick Take...

• Grab an old USB stick. (2GB or more)

• Read the directions. (here)

• Load BackTrack 4 onto your stick. (BackTrack 4 download)

(ta-daaaa!) 

• Now pretend you are William Petersen

Employee Spies on Boss (Oh, both are cops.)

The Botswana Police Service has suspended a senior police officer barely four months after he returned to work following his suspension arising from charges that he was allegedly involved in irregularities relating to tender procedures for the purchase of high-tech equipment to eavesdrop on cell phone and electronic mail conversations. This time around the officer was suspended for allegedly hacking his boss’s computer, thereby accessing privileged information. (more)

"Just one of my old CDs, officer."

There's a potential new form of steganography -- the sending of messages in ways that leave no hint the messages even exists -- that could lead to corporate data loss via CDs. (more)

Report... Espionage Goes Commercial

via securityinfowatch.com...

"Today, I've been perusing a new report from the Defense Security Service (DSS), and if you've been thinking espionage ended with the Cold War and exists today only in James Bond movies, think again! This report looks at how espionage -- either through human contact or through technology infiltrations -- is targeting U.S. Defense Department contractors, especially in regards to new technology related to UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)...

So, the point is that the espionage is being pushed out into the commercial arena, rather than from traditional government spies. But how involved are the governments, really? Are they facilitating commercial contact for espionage purposes? It's a question that we'll likely never have answered, and if they are doing that, it gives them plausible deniability."

(more) (download the report) 

"Juz following up on complaint, newzboy."

Russia - Moscow's Tverskoi District Court has authorized the seizure of documents and computers from the New Times magazine after it published a story on police corruption...

The New Times said it had received a court notice about the impending confiscation and would appeal... The independent magazine also said it has complained to the Federal Security Service that an eavesdropping device had been found in the car of its editor-in-chief, Yevgenia Albats. (more)

How Do They Do It - Net Tapping

"Our latest products are the industry's only intelligent network surveillance probes for 1Gbps and 10Gbps networks. 

Designed for use in distributed surveillance environments under the control of separate mediation systems, they are ideal for monitoring large and complex networks and offer advanced features such as target discovery based on Webmail/Email address, chat/IM id, VoIP calling information, and IP address/subnet.

DeepProbe has the capability to fully inspect every network packet, so the controlling mediation systems don’t need to rely on CMTSs, switches, routers or other probes for filtering and intercept." (more)

“This is one of the most unusual cases I have ever encountered”, said Suzanne Stringer, of the Crown Prosecution Service.

UK - Man frames co-worker’s husband as collector of child pornography... (his goal) was to break up the marriage of the co-worker with whom he was infatuated. The police finally managed to trace the real culprit after it emerged that the Finnish man had previously appeared unannounced at his co-worker’s home when her husband was at work...

Furthermore, the police uncovered photographs taken inside the victim’s home in Karttunen’s possession. From his workplace, a tractor factory, the investigators also found a bugging device containing recordings of the victim’s family life. (more)

"Most enterprises do not actually know whether their data security programs work or not..."

The business of trading in corporate secrets is bigger and more lucrative than ever, a Forrester study commissioned by Microsoft, RSA and EMC has found, with tech companies in particular targeted for theft.

Most people associate espionage with war and politics. In the tech-centric 21st century, the trading of secrets for cash is where the game is at and most enterprises are overly focused on compliance and not enough on protecting their secrets.

The study concluded that most enterprises do not actually know whether their data security programs work or not. (more) (The Forrester study)

Of course they don't know... Corporate secrets are vulnerable long before they are distilled into to computerized data. Risk mitigation begins with a counterespionage strategy that takes into account pre-data information security. 

Please, get a good counterespionage strategist on-board. IT security alone is too little, too late.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" not to mention "Uh-oh!"

Alfred Wong, a former Secret Service official who reportedly oversaw the installation of the taping system at the Nixon White House, and whose job at one point was to prevent the White House from being bugged, died last week of mesothelioma, a form of cancer, the Washington Post reported. He was 91.

Wong, of Potomac, Md., spent 24 years in the Secret Service before retiring in 1975 as deputy assistant director in charge of White House security, the Post reported.

Wong told USA Today in 1994, because his job was to prevent bugs from being installed in the White House, he was reluctant to install the tape recording system ordered by Nixon, the Post reported.

“My first response was that we shouldn’t do it, but then it was that we have to do it,” Wong told USA Today. “They wanted it done surreptitiously.”

Of course, the rest is history. (more) (more)

Spybusters InfoBonus...

Report on the US Secret Service and the White House taping system during the Nixon Administration - Secret Service Participation in Tapings (click here)

Update - Feed the Children Bugging Case

Oklahoma’s attorney general has opened a formal investigation of Feed The Children because of allegations of misuse of funds, an assistant attorney general disclosed Friday.

The investigation will involve scrutiny of the charity board of directors and its former president, Larry Jones, who was fired in November.

The charity has accused Jones of taking bribes, hiding porn magazines at the charity and "bugging” executives’ offices. The charity also alleges he misspent charity funds, pocketed travel money, kept gifts from appearances, secretly gave himself a raise and misused a charity employee as a nanny.

Jones denies wrongdoing... (more)

Even more interesting... Jones asked for the AG to get involved!