Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Spy v Spy in Nicaragua — Some Things Never Change

U.S. officials are tracking the activity of a Russian spy base on the edge of a volcano in Nicaragua that is believed to be monitoring American agents.

The CIA has reportedly sent numerous Russian-speaking Cold War experts to perform counter surveillance of Moscow’s activity in Central America.

One source told The Washington Post, “Clearly, there’s been a lot of activity, and it’s on the uptick now.”

Located in Laguna de Nejapa, the base is officially known as a tracking site for Moscow’s GPS satellite system, but CIA officials suspect that resources there are being utilized to spy on the American Embassy located only ten miles away. more

PIN Crack Hack, or The Gyro Knows

Turns out your phone's PIN code is less secure than previously thought. Researchers demonstrated how to hack it with gyroscope data.

It’s no secret that smartphone PIN codes are not perfect, but new research suggests they might be next to worthless. A team of scientists at Newcastle University in the U.K. was able to guess a user’s phone PIN code with nothing more than data from the device’s sensors.

In a paper published in International Journal of Information security, researchers demonstrated how a phone’s gyroscope — the sensor that tracks the rotation and orientation of your wrist — could be used to guess a four-digit PIN code with a high degree of accuracy. In one test, the team cracked a passcode with 70 percent accuracy. By the fifth attempt, the accuracy had gone up to 100 percent.

...it highlights the danger of malicious apps that gain access to a device’s sensors without requesting permission. more

Tips...
  • Make sure you change PINs and passwords regularly so malicious websites can't start to recognize a pattern.
  • Close background apps when you are not using them and uninstall apps you no longer need.
  • Keep your phone operating system and apps up to date.
  • Only install applications from approved app stores.
  • Audit the permissions that apps have on your phone.
  • Scrutinize the permission requested by apps before you install them and choose alternatives with more sensible permissions if needed.
The above is just the tip of this iceberg. For the full scare, read what Dr. Maryam Mehrnezhad had to say. ~Kevin

Monday, April 10, 2017

Siemens Employee Arrested in Netherlands for Business Espionage

Siemens said on Friday that an employee had been arrested in the Netherlands in a case which the country's financial crimes prosecutor said involved suspected espionage for a Chinese competitor...

He did not disclose which department the employee worked for or whether it was known if secrets had been leaked.

Click to enlarge.
Investigators said the man was detained on a train station platform as he was about to travel to China.

In addition to searching his baggage, they raided his home and workplace, seizing several digital memory devices.

Corporate espionage cases rarely come to light in the Netherlands. more

It Pays to Spot Spies in Beijing, or Peeking Duck


China is offering cash rewards of up to $72,400 to encourage residents in the capital Beijing to report about foreign spies in the country, stepping up its campaign against espionage.

Beijing's residents can report through a hotline, by mail or in person any activity endangering China's national security or thefts of national secrets, the Beijing Daily and other state media reported.

The top reward for whistle-blowers ranges from $1,500 (100,000 yuan) to $72,400 (500,000 yuan), depending on how important the intelligence is, the report said. more

BBC Uncovers Secret Bank of England Recording

A secret recording that implicates the Bank of England in Libor rigging has been uncovered by BBC Panorama

The 2008 recording adds to evidence the central bank repeatedly pressured commercial banks during the financial crisis to push their Libor rates down.

Libor is the rate at which banks lend to each other, setting a benchmark for mortgages and loans for ordinary customers. more

Panorama: The Big Bank Fix will be broadcast on BBC One on Monday 10 April at 20.30.

Monday, April 3, 2017

Former Prosecutor Admits to Illegal Wiretap in Love Triangle

A former New York City prosecutor 
has pleaded guilty to charges she used an illegal wiretap to spy on two other people in a love triangle. 

Tara Lenich entered the plea on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn.

The 41-year-old Lenich admitted that she forged documents so she could wiretap the phones of a police detective and another woman working as a prosecutor working in the Brooklyn district attorney's office. Authorities haven't revealed the identities of her targets. more

500 Year Old Russian Eavesdropping Device

Archaeologists have uncovered a 500-year-old spy chamber beneath a Moscow street. 

It was built underneath a 2.5km wall to protect Russians from Polish raids – and was used to listen in on the enemy through a wall.

It is said the room’s vaulted walls created an acoustic effect which allowed people to eavesdrop.

It contained around 150 artifacts, including ancient cooking equipment, upon its discovery. more with video

Extra Credit: 6 KGB Spy Tools That are Still Relevant

DJ turned PI turned DJ Uncovers Corporate Espionage of Rival Networks

Australia - Kyle Sandilands called on his little known training as a private eye 
to uncover what he calls multiple acts of “corporate espionage” aimed at destabilising his hit breakfast show...

He eventually discovered that a number of people from 2DayFM and NOVA had been emailing clips from The Kyle and Jackie O Show to advertisers and celebrity agents, suggesting they move their business from KIIS to them.

Sandilands says he was shocked when he discovered the extent of the ‘”corporate espionage” after he started getting proof from KIIS clients and associates in the US, where he has a music business. more

Burglars and Peeping Toms Use Drones

UK - Loud music, unkempt gardens and disputed boundaries have long caused acrimony between neighbours. Now technology has brought a new grievance: low-flying drones.

As well as causing arguments between neighbours they have been used by burglars planning raids and to snoop on teenage girls sunbathing.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that last year forces recorded 3,456 incidents involving drones, nearly ten a day. The true total is likely to be higher as data was not available for all forces. more

Crack the Code - Get a Drink

The Bletchley is a spy-themed London bar where you have to crack codes to order drinks.

To do that, you use imitation World War 2 Enigma machines which generate a unique code for every "agent." Orders are then transmitted via radio to the bar.

The venue is inspired by Bletchley Park, the site where British mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing and his team used to crack German codes during World War 2. more with video

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Space X & Tesla - So, why not Blink & an electric car?!?!

Blink, which makes home security cameras, debuts its Blink XT1 EPV, the first car that runs on batteries, coming summer 2018.


The dramatic trailer slowly builds suspense as it unveils the sleek automobile and poses the question we've all pondered—what if a car could run on store-bought batteries?

Friday, March 31, 2017

Privacy Tips for the New Post-Privacy Internet

10 practical privacy tips for the post-privacy Internet.

  1. Educate yourself about cookies and clean them out regularly.
  2. Use two, or even three, browsers.
  3. Disable Flash or option it.
  4. Change your DNS serve.
  5. Lose search engines that track you. Now.
  6. Use the Tor browser(s).
  7. Remove your information on websites.
  8. If you have the luxury, change ISPs.
  9. Use virtual machines.
  10. Modify your browser as little as possible. more

Operation Ivy Bells — Cold War, Cold Water Wiretapping

Secrets haunt the still-classified Operation Ivy Bells, a daring Cold War wiretapping operation conducted 400 feet underwater.

It's the summer of 1972 and the U.S. is in the middle of pulling off the most daring, covert, and dangerous operation of the Cold War. Only a few months before, the signing of SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty) limited the number of nuclear missiles of the world's two largest superpowers. Yet even with this well-publicized US/Soviet détente in place, a submerged American submarine rests mere miles from the Russian coastline.

At the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk, the U.S. nuclear submarine Halibut silently listens to the secret conversations of the Soviet Union. With the Kremlin completely unaware, Navy divers emerge from a hidden compartment (referred to as the "Bat Cave") and walk along the bottom of the sea in complete darkness, wiretapping the Soviet's underwater communications line.

America wiretapped this particular Soviet communications cable for maybe a decade or more—and many details remain classified. It was the U.S.'s most ambitious wiretapping operation, until this point, in its entire history. This was Operation Ivy Bells. more

Economic Espionage: Declining, or just more stealthy?

by Taylor Armerding 
Eighteen months ago, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced, with considerable fanfare, an agreement aimed at curbing economic espionage... 

So, with Xi due to meet with President Trump in early April, an obvious question is: Has the agreement been effective?...

The reviews on that are mixed...

Robert Silvers, writing on the Lawfare blog, called the statement, “a landmark concession” by the Chinese, and said in the months since, multiple researchers and analysts had concluded that the agreement, “coincided with a significant downturn in Chinese hacking activity.”...

FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence, concluded that while “unprecedented action by the US government” was a factor in the decline, it actually began in the middle of 2014 – more than a year before the Obama/Xi agreement...

John Quinn, former Far East specialist for the CIA, a more tempered view of the impact of the agreement. “I would characterize it as a work in progress, but a good start,” he said....

Israel Barak, CISO of Cybereason, means the conclusion that economic espionage has decreased is “problematic.” “Fewer attempts might mean they already have access,” he said. “The amount attributed to cyber crime in manufacturing, health care and other industries is constantly on the rise.”...

As Kevin Murray, director at Murray Associates, put it, “once someone starts closely watching the cookie jar, the thief is forced to become more crafty.”

Murray, however, contended that the private sector needs to be much more effective in protecting itself. He pointed CSO to a 2015 blog post in which he declared: “We fight like hell for our freedom, but we let the world pick our intellectual pockets.”

Murray said the “punish-the-spy” model isn’t enough – that corporations should be held accountable as well, for failure to protect their assets.

We need a law creating business counterespionage security standards, with penalties for inadequate protection,” he said, arguing that the US already, “successfully employs the same concept with medical and financial record privacy.more

Electronic Eavesdropping Confirmed: CEO's Car Was Bugged During Takeover Talks

The head of Stada, the German drugmaker at the centre of a takeover battle, confirmed his car had been bugged last year but reassured investors that the company had not suffered as a result. "I have no reason to assume that any confidential business information went into the wrong hands," Chief Executive Matthias Wiedenfels told a news conference on Wednesday after the group announced annual financial results.

The disclosure comes at a sensitive time as Stada is the subject of a 4.7 billion euro ($5.1 billion) takeover fight between two rival private equity consortia. It was not clear who was responsible for the bugging and no suggestion that it was connected to the takeover battle.

Germany's Manager Magazin reported last week that Wiedenfels found a listening device in his car and that he was also anonymously sent photographs taken of him in confidential business situations and outside of the office.  more

Did you expect him to say, "Oh yes, confidential business information went into the wrong hands. The company has suffered as a result."

When was the last time you checked? Check here.