Cyber spy campaign targets chemical industry: Symantec

(AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO — US Internet security firm Symantec on Monday exposed a cyber spying campaign targeting trade secrets at top chemical firms and linked the industrial espionage to a man in China.

At least 48 companies, including some that make advanced materials for military vehicles, were targeted in a campaign Symantec dubbed "Nitro" given the type of information at risk.

"Attacks on the chemical industry are merely their latest attack wave," Symantec security response team members Eric Chien and Gavin O'Gorman said in a report released on Monday.

The attacks targeted NGOs supporting human rights from late April to early May before switching to the motor industry, according to the report.

Major chemical firms, mainly in the United States, Britain, and Bangladesh, came under fire by cyber spies from late July to mid September, Symantec said.

Nitro was aimed at stealing intellectual property for competitive advantage, according to Chien and O'Gorman.

Attackers researched firms, sending selected workers booby-trapped emails that, once opened, secretly infected computers with malicious "Poison Ivy" software designed to steal information.

While various ruses were used to trick workers into opening email attachments to unleash spy software in machines, a typical pretext was to fake a meeting invitation from an established business partner.

Another tactic used by cyber spies was to send employees email purporting to be a security software update that needed to be installed in computers, according to Symantec.

Poison Ivy code was written by a Chinese speaker and Nitro attacks were traced to a server located in the United States but owned by a "20-something male" in the Hebei region of China, the report said.

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FBI releases video, papers on Russian spy ring

WSJ

WASHINGTON — FBI surveillance tapes, photos and documents released Monday show members of a ring of Russian sleeper spies secretly exchanging information and money during a counterintelligence probe that lasted about a decade and ended in the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

The tapes show a January 2010 shopping trip to Macy's in New York City's Herald Square by former New York real estate agent Anna Chapman, whose role in the spy saga turned her into an international celebrity. She bought leggings and tried on hats at the New York department store, investigators wrote in a document, and transmitted coded messages while sitting in a coffee shop.

On another occasion, Chapman is visible in a video setting up her laptop computer at a Barnes and Noble. "Technical coverage indicated that a computer signal began broadcasting at the same time," noted part of a heavily redacted FBI report on the incident, apparently showing an effort by Chapman to communicate with her handlers.

Other photos and video from the surveillance operation, which the FBI called "Ghost Stories," show some of the 10 other conspirators burying money in a patch of weeds, handing off documents in what looks like a subway tunnel, meeting during a stroll around Columbus Circle or just taking their kids for a walk.

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Olive Branch Man Caught Peeping with 'Spy Pen'

myfoxmemphis.com

OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. - An Olive Branch man is accused of using a hidden camera to videotape a woman in the shower, and she's not the only victim.

Sam Allen Nuckolls of Olive Branch was a recent house guest of a woman and her husband who live in Gosnell, Arkansas. According to the woman, she had noticed that when she went to take a shower, her house guest had several items laid out on a bathroom counter, including a pen.

On closer inspection, it turned out to be a lot more than an ink pen. It's sold by the name "Video Spy Pen," and it can shoot HD video and audio or high resolution still pictures. It even writes, just in case someone gets suspicious. However, a small flashing light on the side of the pen shows that it is recording. If you open the pen, you will see the USB input device that plugs into a computer for downloading.

That's what tipped off this victim.

She said she left the bath room, then Nuckolls re-entered the bathroom and took his belongings, including the spy pen. Later, when Nuckolls left her home, the woman took the suspicious pen, plugged it into her computer and saw the video that had been recorded in her bathroom.

Her house guest was arrested by Gosnell police. He admitted he had set up the spy cam pen and also admitted he had done it before in Olive Branch, Mississippi, and even gave names of the victims.

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