“Factors that made a noticeable difference in the amount of information collected were clean desk policies, standardized document shredding policies, suspicious reporting processes, and mandatory training and awareness.”

By Maria Korolov, CSO online

Researchers were able to get sensitive corporate information just by looking around corporate offices in 88 percent of attempts, according to a new study.

Michigan based Ponemon Institute sent researchers to 43 offices belonging to seven large corporations who had previously agreed to participate in benchmarking research. The researchers had valid identification as temporary employees, and management knew they were coming — though the office staff did not.

The researchers spent up to two hours in each office, wandering around, taking pictures of computer screens, and picking up documents marked “confidential” and putting them in their bags — all deliberately within full view of the regular employees.

In the vast majority of the cases, the regular office staff did not […]

We’re not sure how this eavesdropping was accomplished, whether through a bugging device or perhaps just through the phone. Phone call recording is often a built in feature for phone systems, but can also be performed through the use of external devices. Phone technicians could have access to the recordings. Even digital phones and VOIP phones can be recorded easily. It could be legal in many locations, if the person doing the recording is part of the conversation. What happens with the content of recordings, on the other hand, could be illegal and can often lead to detrimental results. Wayward employees or staff often think they acting righteously as whistle blowers when committing eavesdropping, but they could be breaking the law and end up in prison.

By Hailey Branson-Potts, LA Times;

A West Hollywood City Council aide has been suspended and is being investigated by sheriff’s detectives on charges of eavesdropping on […]

NBC’s new spy drama “Allegiance” was previewed at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, along with a panel discussion with former intelligence officers including Vince Houghton, historian and curator at the Spy Museum, CIA analyst Mark Stout, and former KGB General Oleg Kalugin. Their comments offer some insight into the real world of spying.

10 Things We Learned Watching Allegiance at The International Spy Museum,
By Nancy Dunham, February 7, 201, pastemagazine.com

If you watched the premiere of Allegiance, NBC’s new spy drama, on Thursday night, you likely wonder what the creators can possibly do to top it. Modern day sex, lies and videotape—not to mention some pretty gnarly torture and a spy-within-a-spy plots—kept us on the edge of our seats when we previewed it at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

Still, questions arise as to whether or not the show, which centers on a 40-something Brooklyn couple (she’s Russian-born, […]

From McClatchyDC by T. Johnson

PANAMA CITY — When the United States rejected former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli’s request for spying equipment to eavesdrop, U.S. diplomats feared, on his political enemies, the former supermarket baron turned to another source: Israel.

Now scores of Panama’s political and social elite are learning that the eavesdropping program that Martinelli’s security team set in place sprawled into the most private aspects of their lives – including their bedrooms. Rather than national security, what appears to have driven the wiretapping was a surfeit of the seven deadly sins, particularly greed, pride, lust and envy.

Nearly every day, targets of the wiretapping march to the prosecutors’ office to see what their dossiers contain, often emerging in distress. Martinelli, who left office in July, is facing a rising tide of outrage not only over the wiretapping, but also over reports of vast corruption. His personal secretary has left […]