Is Russia's Cyberwar Heating Up Amid New Cold War? A recent influx of reports about Russian electronic espionage activity has prompted fresh concerns that the Kremlin may be gunning for a cyberwar with the West. Not everyone is convinced: Russian IT analysts interviewed by The Moscow Times were more inclined to blame the spike in attack reports on media hype and cybersecurity companies exploiting clients' fears. But Russia's leading expert on domestic security services, Andrei Soldatov, said the pattern of the attacks indicated that the Russian government may be mounting a covert Internet offensive. Experts could not say, however, whether heavy guns with the FSB electronic espionage agencies have been deployed. "All government-linked attacks so far have been carried out by people on the market: the cyber-mercenaries," Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the Agentura.ru website, said Wednesday. Read more here.
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By jdleasure corporate espionage espionage Indistrial Espionage spying
FBI Warns of Rise in Disgruntled Employees Stealing Data Wall Street Journal (09/23/14) Barrett, Devlin The FBI said Tuesday that it has seen a spike in the number of disgruntled employees who steal company information, sometimes as part of an effort to extort money from previous employers. There have been cases in which individuals used their access to destroy data, steal software, obtain customer data, make unauthorized purchases, and gain a competitive edge at a new job, the FBI said. A common way to steal information, the FBI noted, is to use cloud storage accounts and personal e-mail. Sometimes, terminated employees still have remote access to the company's system. Organizations that have recently been victimized by data theft have suffered losses of $5,000 to $3 million. The FBI reports that some employees have attempted to extort their employer by restricting access to company...
By jdleasure Cyber TSCM eavesdropping espionage it risk management
Cyber TSCM – A Vital Part of Your Overall IT Espionage Prevention Plan Corporate espionage is one of the most rapidly growing challenges corporations of all sizes must contend with. Corporate espionage, often referred to as industrial espionage, is espionage conducted for commercial benefit. It includes all manner of confidential information collection by illicit means including electronic eavesdropping/technical surveillance, HUMINT intelligence, cyber collection and related information collection by a person(s), entity(s) or country(s) for financial or other gain. Trade secret theft costs businesses throughout the world billions of dollars each year. The loss figures are staggering particularly in consideration of the current economic climate in the US, and subsequently the world at large. And, when the economic climate is challenging, trends indicate corporate espionage increases as businesses scramble to remain viable. Challenging economic climates make it increasingly more difficult to set aside resources...
Married Couple Go On Trial in Germany Accused of Spying for Russia for 25 Years A married couple accused of spying on Germany for 25 years for their Russian paymasters went on trial today in a case that could lead directly to Vladimir Putin's door. Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag began their snooping career in the same city, Dresden, where Putin was posted for the KGB. The duo are accused of first feeding information about West Germany to the former Soviet Union, then the reunited land to the Russian Republic. The espionage agents for Moscow operated under the radar of the intelligence services sending back their reports to their handlers via a radio code. 'The accused had the task of gathering information about the political and military strategy of the EU and NATO as well as security-relevant political aspects of relations between Germany, the...
By jdleasure cyberattack cyberespionage cybertscm espionage
Meet Flame Espionage Malware Cousin: MiniFlame Suspected Flame module turns out to be standalone attack code in use since at least 2010, described as targeted cyberweapon for conducting in-depth surveillance and espionage. Ongoing teardowns of the Flame malware and its underlying components have yielded a surprising discovery: a new piece of malware. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab said that what they previously suspected was an attack module for the Flame malware is instead a standalone piece of attack code, although it can do double duty as a plug-in for both the Flame and Gauss malware. Designed for data theft and for providing attackers with direct access to an infected system, MiniFlame is based on the same architectural platform as Flame, according to Kaspersky Lab. "MiniFlame is a high-precision attack tool," said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab, in an emailed statement. "Most likely...