*Security and TSCM Archives - Page 20 of 30 - Exec Security TSCM

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Listening devices found at Ford HQ; recently fired engineer investigated

from The Detroit News

Detroit— The FBI searched Ford Motor Co.’s world headquarters while investigating one of the automaker’s engineers and seized listening devices, computers and financial records, according to search warrants obtained by The News on Thursday.

A lawyer for the mechanical engineer said Ford’s security team feared she was stealing trade secrets by hiding secret recording devices in conference rooms at the Dearborn automaker’s headquarters, nicknamed the Glass House.

Court records that would explain why the FBI had probable cause to search Ford and the engineer’s home are sealed in federal court. The government’s lawyer on the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, heads the National Security Unit in Detroit, successfully prosecuted underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and specializes in cases involving espionage, counter-terrorism and terrorism financing, among others.

Searching a Fortune 500 company’s world headquarters instead of issuing a subpoena is a rare […]

Exec Security2014-07-25T16:55:17-04:00July 25th, 2014|

West Seneca, NY, employees claim conversations were bugged by former boss

from The Buffalo News

An accountant resigned from her $42,000-a-year part-time job as West Seneca’s comptroller two months ago after employees accused her and an aide of using a tape recorder to secretly record their workplace conversations.

Town officials confirmed that two town employees made complaints against Jean M. Nihill, 57, about a month before she resigned from her job as the town’s top finance officer on May 12. Nihill, a certified public accountant, is the business partner of one of the town’s most politically powerful individuals – town Democratic Party leader Paul T. Clark, who served as town supervisor for 16 years.

The employees also alleged that former deputy comptroller Linda Kauderer took part in the bugging. Kauderer retired from her town job May 20. Police investigated the complaints and verified that a tape recorder was used to record the […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00July 25th, 2014|

Australia: Bugging probe of Greek Orthodox priest and his home

POLICE are examining alleged threats made to a Greek priest and the bugging of a church house in which he was living.

The alleged threats, involving an unnamed priest from the Autocephalic Greek Church of America and Australia, were reported a fortnight ago while the discovery of the concealed listening device was reported to police in late March.

The alleged threats are related to the controversial ordination of Father Prokopios Kanavas as bishop of the AGCAA last August.

Father Kanavas resigned in acrimonious circumstances in April – just eight months after he was ordained. He has been stripped of his titles and moves are now being made to expel him from the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia.

While GOCSA executives believe they know who made the unlawful threats to the priest, the precise motive and culprit responsible for the bugging remain unclear.

The listening device was hidden in the rangehood of a church house […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00July 8th, 2014|

Saskatchewan: Corrections denies bugging employee staff lounge at jail

Hidden microphones can be found disguised in many places. The final destination of this microphone system was for the inmate areas but they were testing it in the staff lounge, without notifying the staff. If you have any type of audio or video monitoring going on in your facilities, be sure to have it included in your company policies and employee agreements.

From CBC News: Mic hidden in smoke detector at Saskatoon Correctional Centre a test run for staff safety system

Management at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre has apologized to employees for not properly warning them about a hidden microphone installed in a staff lounge in April.

In a letter to employees, dated June 23rd, acting director of the correctional centre, Jock McDowell, said the listening device was a prototype for a new intercom system, intended to keep the facility safer.

Saskatoon Correctional Centre [...]
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Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00July 8th, 2014|

Good guys as targets. Hacker who shipped heroin to cyber security expert gets arrested.

Working in any aspect of security can have it’s own dangers. Brian Krebs, known for his cyber security blog KrebsOnSecurity.com was the target of a cybercrook known as “Fly”. Brian, though, was good enough to uncover the identity of the bad guy. The “Fly” was arrested in Naples, Italy, earlier this month.

From Brian Krebs, Krebsonsecurity.com:

A Ukrainian man who claimed responsibility for organizing a campaign to send heroin to my home last summer has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of trafficking in stolen credit card accounts, among other things, KrebsOnSecurity.com has learned.

Passport photo for Sergei “Fly” Vovnenko. He was arrested in Naples, Italy earlier this month.

The only thing I knew about Fly then was that he was the founder and administrator of a closely-guarded Russian-language crime forum called thecc.bz (the “cc” part referring to credit cards). Fly also […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 24th, 2014|

Northern Ireland: Listening device found in vehicle of dissident republican

From BBC.com: A dissident republican from Lurgan, County Armagh, is taking legal action after finding surveillance equipment hidden in his car.

The man, who does not want to be named, is a member of the Republican Network for Unity.

He discovered what appear to be battery packs and a transmitter hidden behind the rear bumper of his car.

They are believed to have been attached to a listening device hidden somewhere in the vehicle.

There was also a smaller device, believed to be a GPS locator that would have enabled those who planted it to track his movements as well as listen to anything said inside the car.

Vehicle listening device.

The man believes the equipment was placed in his car after he refused an attempt to recruit him as an informer.

He told the BBC he was approached at Belfast International Airport in April as he […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 12th, 2014|

Hackers Infiltrate Desk Phones for Epic Office Pranks

Wired Magazine’s Andy Greenberg reports how a researcher at security firm SilverSky, along with a friend who was a reverse engineering tech, were able to hack a coworker’s phone to play pranks on him to get revenge for some pranking he had done. This resulted in a presentation for the Summercon security conference in New York.

The hacking they perform requires access to the internal company network that the the VOIP phones are working on. They discovered a number of bugs that could lead to more nefarious hacks.

An office deskphone hacked via ethernet to show an image on its screen. The phone has been covered in electrical tape and paper to obscure its model. Photo: Andy Greenberg/WIRED

A workplace tip: If you’re planning an office prank war, don’t target someone with the skills to reverse-engineer and control the phone on your desk.

That’s the lesson […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 10th, 2014|

Wash. Post: Companies can spend millions on security measures to keep executives safe

By Christian Davenport, Washington Post

When he stepped down as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin in 2012, Robert Stevens received a base salary of $1.8 million, millions more in bonuses and incentives, use of the corporate aircraft and another expensive perk: personal security.

Lockheed spent $1.3 million to keep Stevens safe during his last year as CEO, then another $407,000 last year while Stevens, who was named during a 2011 terrorism trial as an al-Qaeda target, stayed on as a strategic adviser. The protection will continue, the company said in a recent regulatory filing, “based upon an assessment of the degree to which Mr. Stevens continues to be associated with the corporation and the assessed level of risk.”

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg – When Robert Stevens, former chairman […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 10th, 2014|

ACLU Forces Reveal of How Stingray Cell Phone Tracking Works

Stingray cell phone tracker

Back in February, the ACLU filed a motion to unseal transcripts of a case where Tallahassee Police Department used the Stingray to track a cell phone to a suspect’s apartment. The judge recently unsealed the entire transcript. The part the sought to keep secret can be found [here]. The ACLU article makes it sound quite nefarious. Nothing too surprising. The transcript basically confirms what was understood or assumed to be the method of Stingray technology.

Stingrays “emulate a cellphone tower” and “force” cell phones to register their location and identifying information with the stingray instead of with real cell towers in the area.
Stingrays can track cell phones whenever the phones are turned on, not just when they are making or receiving calls.
Stingrays force cell phones in range to transmit information back “at full signal, consuming battery […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 9th, 2014|

Marines from Camp Lejeune train with local amateur radio operators for radio direction finding.

Searching for bugs or hidden transmitters requires radio direction finding techniques, usually deployed for TSCM in a small area such as a conference room or office environment. Similar techniques are used on a larger scale for such things as search and rescue, locating radio interference, as well as finding hidden transmitters. Ham radio clubs often have “fox hunts” to practice these direction finding techniques.

SALISBURY, NC (Salisbury Post) — In an emergency, being able to locate a lost person or find an enemy might save lives. U.S. Marines know this, and their training prepares them for a world of possibilities.

But there are some things classroom training can’t teach, which is why Sgt. Phillip Rice and 12 other Marines traveled from Camp Lejeune to Salisbury on Saturday. Rice said he tries to locate opportunities for hands-on training that will help members of his unit, the […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 8th, 2014|

“We can neither confirm or deny… our first tweet” – @CIA

The NSA may be listening, but the CIA is talking… err, tweeting. If you thought they were following you, now you can follow them.

www.azcentral.com

WASHINGTON — For a spy agency that likes to blend into the background, the CIA’s debut on Twitter has revealed a covert sense of humor.

In a medium heralded for its snide remarks, the Twittersphere gave high praise Friday for the intelligence agency’s first tweet, under the handle @CIA.

“We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet,” posted @CIA. Within an hour it had gained more than 67,000 followers.

At first, that raised a question: Was this really the Central Intelligence Agency? Since any number of fake CIA twitter accounts have sprung up over the years, some caution was in order.

The agency quickly confirmed in a news release that it had, in fact, established a presence on both Twitter and Facebook.

Charles Patterson2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 6th, 2014|

$40,000 eavesdropping investigation at University of Colorado

There is a need to tighten up policies and procedures regarding conference calls. An assistant to CU’s fundraising officer listened in on conference call of a closed door executive session of the Board of Directors. The story is not even so much about what was heard, but more about the cost of investigating the incident (estimated at $40,000) and whether the official may have instructed the assistant to eavesdrop.

from the Daily Camera, Boulder, Co.

Less than a year after being hired as the University of Colorado system’s top fundraising officer, Kelly Cronin is leaving the university in the wake of a $40,000 investigation into an allegation her assistant eavesdropped on a closed-door meeting…

Eavesdropping investigation

At a meeting in Denver between the CU Foundation’s Board of Directors and several university employees, the board moved into executive session, which is closed to all non-board members.

All university employees either left the room or left […]

Charles Patterson2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00June 6th, 2014|

Backdoors to stored phone recordings.

“Calls may be monitored for quality assurance…” but also for other reasons such as legal documentation or emergency services and 911 calls. Call recordings can exist for a number of legitimate purposes, using a variety of means and equipment. Not many use actual tape anymore, it usually stored on digital media. This can range from usb memory, to local PC hard drives, to more elaborate servers and cloud services. The larger systems will be managed by software which could have multiple levels of access.

One system I am familiar with can be set up to record calls and save them as if they were voicemail messages in the user’s mailbox. These recordings are then automatically emailed to the user. Whoever has admin access to the phone system will be able to adjust the destination email addresses, adding multiple different addresses for copies of the […]

Charles Patterson2016-12-16T20:23:49-05:00May 29th, 2014|

Monaco heiress dies from her injuries after mysterious ambush by gunmen

ExecSecurity note: It is worth remembering that most attacks and serious security breaches begin with some form of surveillance taking place. Countermeasures against surveillance are not just for protecting information, it is also for protecting other significant assets including personnel. We will be watching this case to see where the investigation leads.

From theguardian.com:
Police, who first described the attack on Pastor’s car as an “ambush” and an “attempted execution”, admitted they had no idea whether it was Pastor or her chauffeur who was the target of the gunmen, and said the choice of weapons did not suggest a professional assassin.

A police officer examining the car of Hélène Pastor after the shooting outside a Nice hospital, where she was visiting her son. (Photo: Valéry Hache/AFP/Getty)

A wealthy Monaco heiress shot two weeks ago in a mysterious attack on the French Riviera […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:50-05:00May 27th, 2014|

Colombia ex-intelligence officers receive extended sentences over wiretapping

2 Colombia ex-intelligence officers receive extended sentences over wiretapping scandal

A Colombia judge has decided to increase prison sentences on two former intelligence officers who were already convicted for their roles in a wiretapping scandal that unfolded in 2008, local media reported on Thursday.

As more information came to light in the cases against former officials from Colombia’s now-defunct intelligence agency DAS, a Bogota judge has increased the sentences of Luz Marina Rodriguez and Bernardo Murillo Cajamarca from six years in prison to 12.

In addition to their crimes of conspiracy, abuse of public office, and violation of communication for spying on opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights advocates, Rodriguez and Cajamarca have also been linked to infiltrating Colombia’s supreme court.

“As the development of their functional duties, among which are highlighted sessions or private meetings, […] […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:50-05:00May 24th, 2014|

New Hampshire town hall checked for bugging devices.

Espionage concerns reach into all levels of politics. We have been called in on cases where a mayor suspected the chief of police may have bugged his office, and where the local police department thought the town council may have bugged their offices.

Here we find the N.H. State Police were called in to investigate allegations that the Nelson Town Hall may have been bugged with an electronic eavesdropping device.

N.H. State Police investigate allegations of wiretapping at Nelson’s town hall

NELSON — An investigation into whether town officials illegally wiretapped conversations at the Nelson Town Hall is now with the Cheshire County Attorney’s Office, police said.

N.H. State Police say they recently wrapped up a nearly two-month probe into the case.

On March 28, State Police executed a search warrant at the town hall on Nelson Common Road, and, afterward, interviewed residents and town […]

Exec Security2014-05-24T09:59:20-04:00May 24th, 2014|

CIA spy museum

The top secret CIA Museum only spies can visit. (From the UK Daily Mail.)

Tucked away among the labyrinthine corridors of the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, is the ‘coolest museum you will never see’. Hidden from public view, the CIA Museum is comprised of five exhibits full of real paraphernalia from the storied history of the spy agency, which dates back to World War II. Proudly on display are some of the most important historical artifacts of modern times – including the AK-47 found beside the body of Osama bin Laden and the mock-up of his Pakistan compound the agency used to plan their successful assault. The museum, which is just as covert as the spy ring which it honors, displays the James Bond-style gadgets, artifacts and of course trophies they have accrued over 70-years of espionage.

Closed to the public […]

Exec Security2016-12-16T20:23:50-05:00May 23rd, 2014|

Listening devices found at Herbalife headquarters

Corporations usually do a good job of hiding reports of electronic surveillance, yet it continues to occur. Earlier this month, Fox Business News reported that a number of electronic bugs were found in Herbalife’s LA headquarters during the past year. Herbalife would not comment on it but FBN reporter Charlie Gasparino said it was confirmed by a number of outside sources. (If video doesn’t load, click here:Fox.)

The bugs were “non-governmental,” according to the report on Fox Business Network, which cited unidentified sources. “Clearly the company feels it’s been spied upon by outside forces that are not the government,” FBN’s Charles Gasparino reported.

[Read More: New York Post]

[Read More: Business Insider]

Exec Security2014-05-20T21:52:54-04:00May 20th, 2014|