Entries from November 2006

Bug detectors disguised as fountain pens and hidden cameras are no longer only the purview of James Bond. These days, business information security has proved to be a boon for the manufacturers and retailers of counter-surveillance technology.

Julia Adams, director of surveillance retailer Spymaster says:

“The majority of the customers are buying counter-surveillance equipment. The majority are concerned with what is being leaked. They want to make sure they aren’t being bugged and that the competition isn’t listening.”

This is only going to become a bigger problem for businesses. Disgruntled and defecting employees are a substantial part of the challenge, but so are competing businesses, strategic partners, and even foreign intelligence services looking to give the Motherland an economic boost.

As surveillance technology becomes even cheaper, more effective and better disguised, counter-surveillance technology will simply become a part of doing business. Commercial information is easily translated into money, and legal protections are often insufficient when the security breach is not detected.

How secure is your business intelligence?

Add SMiShing to your list of concerns when it comes to identity theft phishing schemes.

SMiShing, a term coined by researchers for the McAfee security software firm, describes a form of phishing in which the bad guys send an SMS (short message service) message to a person’s mobile phone. The first such messages purported to come from dating-service Web sites. Victims would receive a message announcing that the site intended to charge them $2 a day unless they visited the URL listed in the message and followed the steps outlined there to unsubscribe from the service. Upon browsing to the URL (via computer), victims would get hit with drive-by downloads that installed Trojan horse software that subsequently would steal passwords and do other nasty things to the victims’ PC.

Most people don’t expect scams via text message, so these new cell phone phishing schemes are likely having some success. The rule remains the same as it is with email… companies can’t arbitrarily charge you for things without your express consent. So if you didn’t sign up for a service, assume these types of messages are scams aimed at hitting you with nasty Trojan horses, worms and viruses.

Via PC World.

While we might imagine the FBI, CIA or NSA listening in on our phone conversations, the reality is that tapping a phone line is relatively easy for a business competitor or jealous spouse as well. So whomever you suspect is listening, I suspect you’d like to put an end to it.

University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Matt Blaze ­dissected the wiretap equipment commonly used by law enforcement and found a few, um, bugs. Spies, it turns out, don’t like to record dead air, so they turn the system off by playing a special C-pitched tone when the target phone is hung up. As a result, anyone with an MP3 player and a recorded C can prevent eavesdroppers from snooping on their private chatter.

You can download Blaze’s C tone here and broadcast it at low volume during phone calls. Not foolproof, but it’s one more tool in your privacy toolbox.

Via Wired.

If privacy and social networking seem like incongruent concepts to you, well… you likely don’t have enough unwanted virtual “friends” yet.

A new approach is being offered by Rantiq, a company that wants to give you control over your social media profile, and that includes controlling access to select information. Instead of an all on or all off solution, Rantiq lets users control the privacy of up to 15 profile sections for every single friend.

Here’s Rantiq’s Founder and CEO Enoch Lee from the press release:

“At Rantiq we want to give users more options instead of an on or off solution,” Lee says. “We believe that as people make more online friends, they will want more control over the privacy of their profile. Giving users more control over their privacy will help protect personal information in our social network.”

Basically what Rantiq does is let you aggregate all your social site data in one profile, while also giving you control of who sees what. As social media begins to look and act more like the offline world, is there any doubt that people will look back in disbelief in the near future at how freewheeling we were with our personal information?