The spying game: Firms losing billions

bbc.co.uk

Networks of foreign spies are regularly uncovered and Wikileaks continues to release embarrassing documents.


(Listening devices are so small, they are easy to conceal in a room)

Bugging a room is the stuff of legend in old black-and-white movies, although in reality, it is still the most popular way of surreptitiously obtaining information.

There is no law in the UK which says a room cannot be bugged, but there are stringent laws relating to what can and cannot be used. "In the UK, we cannot have CS spray because we cannot harm attackers," she notes, "Whereas in many US states, you can walk in and buy a gun, yet cannot buy a bug or a camera with audio."Anything using a frequency such as UHF or VHF needs a license according to the Wireless and Telegraphy Act.

"Our UHF listening devices are strictly for customers who live outside the EU and they have to sign a declaration," Mrs King explains.

The most common form of listening devices utilises a Sim card and GSM frequencies, as used in ordinary mobile telephones.

More...

Hackers Reveal Offers to Spy on Corporate Rivals

nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — A fight between a group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers and a California-based Internet security business has opened a window onto the secretive world of private companies that offer to help corporations investigate and discredit their critics.

This week, hackers said they had penetrated the computers of HBGary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to corporations, and posted tens of thousands of what appear to be its internal company e-mails on the Internet.

The documents appear to include pitches for unseemly ways to undermine adversaries of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, like doing background research on their critics and then distributing fake documents to embarrass them.

The bank and the chamber do not appear to have directly solicited the spylike services of HBGary Federal. Rather, HBGary Federal offered to do the work for Hunton & Williams, a corporate law firm that has represented them.

More...

Chinese Hackers Target Western Oil Companies

spinport.com

A US security firm has declared that China-based hackers have effected illegal entry to the computers of oil companies in the US, Taiwan, Kazakhstan and elsewhere. The report, released on Thursday by McAfee, says hackers purloined sensitive information concerning bidding, operations, and finance for oil fields. No companies were named.

Attacks commenced in 2009. Experts rate China as the hub of internet crime, including sophisticated industrial espionage against major companies.

China’s government has denied involvement, but a cyber-attack on the British Foreign Office was recently attributed to it. An email received by three personnel claimed to relate to an upcoming visit to the region, and appeared utterly innocent, but a document was attached which contained computer code that would have adversely affected any machine that opened it. Systems identified the threat. Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was the work of “a hostile state intelligence agency,” which intelligence sources say is China.

More...