The crime of espionage once conjured images of dark street corners, fedora-wearing spies and government agents who stayed in the shadows, rarely seeing the inside of a public courtroom.
These days, the game has changed. The same agents are now looking for different kinds of spies, ones who increasingly threaten corporate America — while they’re working within it.
The crime is called economic espionage and it has catapulted to one of the top federal law enforcement priorities in the country.
It often involves American-based employees who burrow into company computer systems, steal prized trade secrets and hand over the information to overseas competitors for tens of thousands — even millions — of dollars.
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A retired Garda inspector has described investigations into the alleged interception of cross-border telephone calls between the RUC and Gardaí by the IRA, leading to the murder of two senior RUC officers.
Retired inspector Chris Kelly was asked to carry out an investigation in 2009 following an article that appeared in the Phoenix magazine, claiming that the IRA had a bug the organisation used to intercept phone calls between Dundalk garda station and the RUC over secure lines.
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Lawyers who are made privy to the identity of police phone bugging and surveillance targets will face up to two years’ jail if they disclose the information, the Victorian government says.
The minister responsible for the establishment of an anti-corruption commission, Andrew McIntosh, has released the legislation setting up public interest monitors (PIMs).
The PIM, and his or her deputies, will attend court and tribunal hearings where police or Office of Police Integrity (OPI) representatives apply for permission to tap someone’s phone or track them using surveillance devices.
They will also appear at warrant applications made by the yet to be established Independent Broadbased Anti-Corruption Commission.
The draft law follows Ombudsman George Brouwer’s finding earlier this month that there was an accountability gap regarding telephone intercepts in Victoria.
He recommended the government develop measures to allow the merit of telecommunication intercepts to be assessed.
Mr McIntosh told the parliament the PIMs would be lawyers who would have to act independently and not be employed by the commonwealth, the state or the Office of Public Prosecutions.
They would attend application hearings in the courts where they would have the right to question warrant applicants and have access to a copy of the application and any affidavit.
If a PIM disclosed the sensitive information to others they would face two years’ jail.
Mr McIntosh said last year alone Victoria Police and the OPI made 424 applications for telecommunications interception warrants and all had been granted.
It was a similar situation with surveillance device warrants.
“Covert investigation and coercive powers, such as surveillance devices (and) telecommunications interceptions … are among the most intrusive powers available to integrity and law enforcement bodies in Victoria,” he said.
“Strong accountability measures should exist for the use of such significant powers.”
The legislation will be debated in the lower house next month.
Hackers reportedly used an off-the-shelf computer attack created in China to compromise the computers of at least 48 companies, including in the chemical and defense industries — an attack described as being similar to the notorious Stuxnet virus, if not as severe.
The goal of the attacks, reported Monday by security software company Symantec, “appears to be to collect intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes.”
The purpose: “industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage.”
Symantec dubbed the attack “Nitro” and said a total of 29 companies in the chemical industry were targeted, in addition to 19 in other sectors, starting in late July. Among the companies were some that develop materials used primarily in military vehicles.
The infected computers spanned the globe, from the United States to Denmark to Saudi Arabia and Japan. Symantec didn’t identify the successfully attacked companies by name.
Emails carrying a rogue file were used to compromise the companies networks, Symantec said. The messages purported to contain a necessary security update, but instead, unsuspecting users were opening a self-extracting executable file containing PoisonIvy, which Symantec described as a “common backdoor Trojan developed by a Chinese speaker.”
From there, the attackers went to work finding out all they could about the computers in the workgroup or domain.
“Nitro wasn’t at the level of sophistication of a Stuxnet,” Jeff Wilhelm, a senior researcher with Symantec’s security response, told Computerworld. “But there are similarities with other advanced threats.” He gave the attack’s narrow focus as one example.
Symantec traced the attacks to a man in his 20s living in the Hebei region of China, though it is unclear how deeply he may have been involved in the cyberattack and whether anyone else was involved.
Geographic location of infected computers in the Symantec report.
(Credit: Symantec)
Hackers targeted about 50 organizations–including chemical and defense companies–in a global wave of cyber espionage attacks this summer, Symantec said in a report released today.
The goal apparently was to steal intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes. “The purpose of the attacks appears to be industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage,” according to the report. (PDF)
Meanwhile, French nuclear power group Areva was reportedly targeted in a cyber attack in September.
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