• THE FACTS: the statistics are frightening

    95% of world corporate espionage is not reported

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Who Bugs people & How do I know?

Spyware equipment sales worldwide range into over a billion dollars per year. Spy equipment is being illegally deployed globally in businesses and private residences. Much of this is going undetected due to a lack of awareness and action.

What are the WARNING SIGNS that you may be being spied on right now?

This just happened:

  1. Your confidential or sensitive information is now in the media/public knowledge
  2. You received an office gift from someone you don’t trust
  3. Your private pictures have been posted in a public forum
  4. You are being blackmailed
  5. Your business marketing plans are now common knowledge in your industry
  6. You lost a client recently and didn’t see it coming
  7. An employee left without giving notice
  8. Your competition is hiring your former staff
  9. Alot of dust from the ceiling or wall brackets has fallen to the floor or onto the furniture
  10. You have been “surprise audited”, by the ATO, Workcover, IRC or OSR
  11. You have been outmaneuvered in trade negotiations
  12. You are about to launch a product or service that absolutely must not miss it’s deadline
  13. You have failed to get a better deal from business customers, or wage negotiations with employees

Dangerous behaviour

  1. You have divorce proceedings in action
  2. Employees are gossiping about your profitability
  3. Friends and associates letslip information that no one should know
  4. Your staff are friends with staff employed by your competitors
  5. You suspect your security manager is incompetent
  6. You suspect your employees may be involved in illegal activities
  7. Staff and associates that you do not trust have access to your sensitive data
  8. No one has checked the telephony IDF board on your floor for over 12 months
  9. No one has checked the Telephony MDF board in your building (all building tenants have access) in over 12 months
  10. You are a party to a legal will that is currently being contested
  11. You are doing something that government departments may not be too happy about
  12. You are having an affair

Threats happening now:

  1. You sense you are being followed or watched
  2. Your car has been moved or your car seat was left in a different position
  3. You have you lost sensitive information now and in the past mysteriously
  4. You keep “Running into” someone you don’t want to
  5. Your competitors are always one step ahead of you
  6. You found a mysterious USB stick around the workplace; and when checked the data doesn’t make sense; it won’t register on a computer, or another language pops up in the USB’s files e.g. Chinese, Russian.
  7. The business could be sued if the confidential information of your clients were released to the public?
  8. You found electronics that seem harmless, but you do not know what their function is e.g. computer and phone adaptors?
  9. Things are not where they were left in your office or home
  10. You will probably lose your job and the business would be liable if a staff member were eavesdropping on other staff in high risk places such as: Change rooms, toilets, under desks
  11. You hear strange noises on your desk phone e.g. volume dropping/ swelling
  12. You work from home as well as the office; and have minimal security measures at home
  13. Technical counter surveillance sweeps are not in your security budget
  14. You have people who simply cannot be trusted around your business and extended family
  15. Your insurer has grounds to deny paying any future liability claims from any data theft losses by claiming negligence; due to management not conducting regular TSCM sweeps
  16. You do not have an electronic eavesdropping attack management program

You mobile phone:

  1. You receive strange texts on your phone e.g. “Diverting”
  2. You mobile phone power drops very quickly
  3. Your mobile phone is very warm when it has not been in use
  4. Someone has recently asked to borrow your cell phone

What you need to know

95% of world corporate espionage is not reported

According to ASIS International, 95% of corporate espionage is not reported to the authorities by the victims for various reason such as they:

  1. Do not want to affect the share price of their company
  2. Do not want to be fired for negligence or incompetence
  3. Do not want to alarm their clients that their sensitive details may be released to the public, due to the business lack of security systems and procedures.
  4. Do not believe law enforcement will have any chance of detecting, charging or proving who the offender was
  5. Do not want to be exposed and embarrassed by their lack of knowledge and awareness of being bugged; or that they didn’t think to bring in a TSCM technician to sweep and clear the premises.
  6. Where so wide open to attack, they didn’t know where to start, how they were hit, for how long, and who was responsible

Often they just fire the security manager after ensuring he has signed a confidentiality contract.

Questions:

  1. Who around you wants what you’ve got?
  2. When is the last time you checked to see if you are being listened to?
  3. Do you believe that people put your interests ahead of their own?
  4. Is counter espionage in your security budget? If not why not?
  5. Do you want to be the officer or person who was responsible for letting the information be stolen?
  6. Do you want to be seen as negligent or incompetent?
  7. Do you want to be the only one in the industry who isn’t smart enough to protect yourself?
  8. Do you think you have the qualifications, experience, equipment or patience to find live microphones or cameras in your home, car and business?

Do you know?

  1. How to make secure phone calls?
  2. Where spy gear is normally professionally installed and concealed
  3. If you are being spied on by a competitor? Ex-partner? Co-worker?
  4. Other people, whose downfall was from being unaware how to protect themselves from having had their private conversations and communications electronically intercepted?
  5. How to change your router administrator passwords?
  6. 400 million dollars in spy gear is sold yearly in the USA? You can guess what for?
  7. If there are clear and comprehensive communications policies and procedures to prevent your staff stealing your Intellectual property?
  8. Most people’s personal and business situation is WIDE OPEN to attack, because no counter surveillance action was taken, and most people are oblivious to the concept.
  9. That you have a duty of care to your family, business and employees to protect them?
  10. Help is available from security professionals so that you can maintain and monitor your security levels with affordable state of the art technology?
  11. A virus scanner does not cut it anymore
  12. If you are a security manager, you need to be educated to the facts of your clients and to know of what’s actually going on in your department.
  13. That you will probably get the blame if the tap is located in your workstation, car or home office?
  14. How easy it is to rip all data from your phone without the attacker even touching it, by mimicking a GSM phone tower base station, lowering your phone encryption level and taking control and listening in to your phone.
  15. That it’s easy to plug your phone into a machine that will bypass your passcode, download everything from your phone, and even restore everything you have ever deleted?
  16. Do you know that you can be tracked with any cell phone to within 1 foot in Australia by triangulating polarity on GSM phone towers?

FACT: Competitors have dedicated teams to research and gain intelligence on each other worldwide.

Take a look at the clear and present danger around you:

REPORTS:

“According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Economic Crime Survey released in March 2012, 30 per cent of businesses surveyed in Australia reported a cyber crime incident—including malicious software attacks, tampering of hardware, leaking of confidential data, hacking and attacks on websites—over the past year. Of those, 16 per cent had lost more than $5 million and half had lost more than $100,000.”

https://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/intelligence-products/crime-profile-fact-sheets/cyber-and-technology-enabled-crime

Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime

Economic impact of cybercrime II (Executive Summary)

http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-economic-impact-cybercrime2-summary.pdf

“Large-scale attacks have occurred against retailers, hotel chains, an airline, and financial service companies in Australia, with losses averaging over $100 million per company.”

The full report indicates that cybercrime is calculated as .08% of Australia’s GDP.

See Appendix C in the full report:

http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-economic-impact-cybercrime2.pdf

News Articles relating to: Australian Electronic Corporate Espionage

ABC Online (Australia) (20/10/14)

Australia’s domestic spy agency has disclosed Australia is facing an increased danger from foreign governments trying to steal electronic information. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) said in a report that it is possible for hackers backed by foreign governments to obtain considerable amounts of valuable information and that the espionage is difficult to find. ASIO warned that it is prevalent and also affects community groups, academic institutions, and businesses. The report also said the number of Australian passports denied on security grounds has more than doubled in the last financial year. ASIO said most of the passports that were refused were linked to conflict in Syria.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-21/australia-faces-risk-from-foreign-hackers3a-asio/5828512

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (05/08/14); Osborne, Paul; Curtis, Katina

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is defending the federal government’s plan to increase counterterrorism efforts. Abbott says the increased security is necessary as more Australian passport holders travel to conflict zones in the Mideast and receive training from terrorist groups. The government is set to give spy and police agencies $630 million to implement new laws to address the problem of Australians who fight, train, or support terrorist groups. One proposed law would allow the government to require people to provide proof before traveling to certain areas that they are doing so for humanitarian or family reasons. Other proposed laws will make it easier to arrest terrorists by lowering the threshold for arrest without a warrant for terrorism offenses; make it easier to prosecute foreign fighters; and extend the Australian Security Intelligence Organization’s (ASIO) questioning and detention powers beyond July 2016, among other things. The government is also planning to require telecommunications firms to store data such as phone numbers, call times, dates and duration of calls, cell tower locations, and names of customers for two years.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/terrorism-fears-prompt-boost-to-spy-powers-20140805-3d5cl.html

Wall Street Journal (31/05/13); Curran, Enda

Australia’s Liberal-National coalition, the favoured party in the upcoming September election, would like to see a global pact to regulate the use of cyber spying among tech-savvy nations like the United States and China. The coalition’s Malcolm Turnbull said it would be in the best interest of all parties to agree upon “some ground rules” to make sure significant damage is not done to businesses or infrastructure through cyber attacks. China is largely considered to be the main perpetrator of cyber espionage, but Turnbull said it is likely the country is also being spied on. “The days when all of the advanced technology was in the Western world and none of it in China are long over. Chinese firms are just as vulnerable as Western ones,” he explained. Ironically, Australia’s concern for cyber espionage and its diplomatic approach to the issue have made it the target of cyberattacks, some of which reportedly struck the nation’s central bank. “Attacks, both hacktivist and state-sponsored, have become more intense and varied,” said Commonwealth Bank of Australia Chief Information Officer Ian Harte.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324412604578516533136696770

ABC Online (Australia) (09/25/12); Cooper, Hayden

Cyber security experts and officials in Australia are pointing to a major increase in cyber attacks targeting Australians in recent years. Professor Alan Dupont of the University of South Wales says that government agencies alone are likely targeted as many as 400 to 600 times a month, while Carolyn Patteson, the executive director of Australia’s Computer Emergence Response Team (CERT), says that some 130 attacks are reported to her organization every week. The organizations being targeted in the attacks, which have a number of different illegal and disruptive goals, range from government agencies to small businesses. Financial service provider Sulieman Ravell describes a distributed denial-of-service attack on his company Web site last year as, “… like having a shop on a high street, and somebody coming and dumping several tons of dirt outside your shop. Nobody’s actually broken in, nobody’s actually stolen anything from you, they’ve just stopped you from operating.” Ravell says the attack was part of an effort by unknown hackers to extort money from him, and while the attacks were eventually tracked to a Russian-operated botnet, others say that some of the most worrying activity comes from China. Former U.S. Admiral Dennis Blair and retired intelligence analyst Paul Monk say that, despite strenuous denials from Chinese officials and businessmen, the evidence is clear that state-sponsored Chinese hackers are behind a great deal of the cyber espionage targeting intellectual property and commercial secrets in Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-25/hackers-target-australias-electronic-secrets/4280104

The Australian (Australia) (28/08/12); Hepworth, Annabel

Chinese telecom tech giant Huawei Technologies recently issued a statement to an Australian Parliamentary committee, expressing concerns about proposed cyber security legislation and criticizing the Australian government for what Huawei perceives as discrimination against Chinese firms. Huawei was blocked from tendering bids for the development of Australia’s publicly-owned National Broadband Network in 2010 after the Australian Security Intelligence Organization and Defence Signals Directorate warned Parliament that Huawei had been implicated in corporate espionage for and with the assistance of the Chinese government. ASIO and the DSD warned that allowing Huawei to participate in the establishment of the NBN could result in Beijing having access to the network. Huawei has denied these allegations, and their latest submission to Parliament objects to new cyber security measures proposed by the Attorney-General’s Department. Huawei says that it is concerned, based on recent statements by members of parliament regarding Chinese espionage, that the measures could unfairly target, “vendors from a particular country of origin with little or no benefit for security outcomes.” The company then warns that,” discriminatory regulation risks resulting in higher end-user costs, less equipment availability, and reduced innovation.”

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (21/08/12); Yeates, Clancy

David Irvine, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, on Aug. 20 spoke to business men and women in Canberra and warned of the dangers posed to Australian businesses by cyber crime and industrial espionage. In particular Irvine spoke of the need for rigorous security assessments before uploading sensitive data to cloud storage and the need for increased mobile device security, especially when traveling abroad. “Telephones and laptops are all vulnerable to exploitation at the customs barrier and at the hotel; they should never be left alone,” said Irvine. Indeed many Australian and international companies have adopted a strategy of assigning their workers “clean” computers and devices when they travel to countries such as Russia or China in an effort to protect their data. Such devices are often so thoroughly contaminated with malware after these visits that they are simply disposed of rather than restored. Domestic assets are not necessarily safe from digital espionage efforts, either. In 2007 Australian mining company BHP Billiton’s efforts to acquire rival Rio Tinto were derailed in part by a cyber attack campaign thought to have originated in China, which strongly opposed the deal.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/asio-chief-warns-of-business-espionage-20120820-24ioc.html

The true cost of data loss:

Don’t let your private life be public, save you and your client the embarrassment by taking action.

  1. Corporate losses in Australia are estimated in the hundreds of millions per year
  2. 26 billion is spent worldwide in 2013 by the biggest corporations security departments in counter surveillance measures, are you operating within world’s best practice?

1999 Price Waterhouse Coopers Estimated:

The cost of industrial espionage was 45 billion dollars per year in the USA alone.

2002 US congress report on foreign economic collection and industrial espionage stated:

“The Combined cost of foreign and domestic economic (industrial) espionage, including theft of intellectual property, as high as $300 billion per year and rising in the USA.

Common collection techniques:

  1. Bribery cash or job offer
  2. Eavesdropping
  3. Trash collection
  4. Manipulation of employees – scams. Big with Japanese, Chinese companies cultures
  5. Hire private investigators

Who does the spy work for?

  1. Former government intelligence agents
  2. Former police
  3. Private investigators (most common)
  4. Former armed forces/ mercenaries (soldiers of fortune)
  5. Electronics engineers

How did they get into my place?

Unfortunately most of the time you, or one of you staff allowed them “inside the fort”

Eavesdropping attacks that focus on gaining in room audio or video require what is known as: “Time on target”, meaning someone has to physically install a bug or transmitter into the higher value areas such as offices, boardrooms, and cars.

Proximity is power…

  1. Did you know that 80% of locks can be opened with two small tools, by doing a “lift” of the tumblers inside your lock.
  2. Most home alarm panels can be easily switched off with master factory codes that people never bother changing.
  3. A lot of hidden bugs have been placed by the home occupant or owner to spy on their spouses, children, babies, pets, house sitters, staff, and parents.
  4. It is usually an Inside job, with someone you trusted with full access to your data.

WHAT some victims of industrial espionage or electronic harassment did:

The LAZY + INCOMPETENT:

Many hoped it wouldn’t happen to them. They got the blame or were fired for incompetence due to failure to protect the business or family home in their custody. Many in this case tried to save a few thousand dollars, and lost hundreds of thousands to millions in law suits due to:

  • Business failure
  • Not protecting their clients private data
  • Lost income
  • Taxation audits
  • Embarrassment and career damage
  • Job losses

The ARROGANT+ IRRESPONSIBLE:

They thought they knew everything industrial espionage, and didn’t want to take professional advice. They also mistakenly thought that because they were the boss or business owner, employees had his or her, not their own, best interests at heart.

Historically, many tried to blame the:

  • IT manager
  • Current staff
  • Former staff
  • Their competitors
  • Businesses in the same building
  • Their security provider
  • The electrician
  • The plumber
  • The cleaners

Why? Because they had absolutely no idea what was happening to them until the bug was found. It was everyone else’s fault, but in the end it was the decision makers who were blamed.

WHAT have you got to lose?:

  • 1. Business Reputation

    • Affects stock price
    • Employee morale
    • Future business opportunities
    • Business sale value
    • Sales teams jobs made harder
    • General mistrust and stifled communication
    • Clients worried about their personal data being leaked
    • Strategic partners trust

  • 2. Personal reputations

    • As professional managers
    • Security staff
    • Staff trust issues
    • Future job prospects for employees
    • Friendships
    • Loyalty to business

  • 3. Intellectual property

    • Clients list – pricing, volume, names, contracts, expiries, Service levels
    • Marketing and sales plans- Timing Pricing, new goods and services, advertising
    • New business development plans- the next 1-5 years of your future
    • Research and development – product and service testing, new designs, inventions production techniques

  • 4. Financials – critical information for Hostile takeovers, mergers and acquisitions

    • Profit and losses,
    • Balance sheets or assets liabilities and equity
    • Tax returns,
    • General ledger
    • Debtors, creditors, solvency
    • Debt equity structuring
    • Budgets
    • Collections efficiency
    • Full business profitability ratios

  • 5. Production and service delivery techniques

    • Unique selling points
    • Competitive advantages
    • Stock, COGS, WIP
    • Overhead
    • Labour cost
    • Industrial issues
    • Unique selling

  • 6. Staff

    • Rates
    • Personal details and history
    • Contacts and relationship list
    • Buying patterns
    • Best customers
    • Quickest payers

  • 7. PERSONAL LOSSES

    • Your job
    • Your entire business
    • Your family’s privacy
    • Your family’s reputation
    • Your family’s safety
    • Your financial security
    • Your assets
    • Your partner (divorce)
    • Your family
    • Being trusted
    • Being seen as competent
    • Your future and your family’s future

A Business case for you to consider:

Total up the damage cost of ALL of the above threats to your business, your family and yourself.

Calculate how much money you spend yearly on unskilled physical security.

Calculate how much you spent on a CCTV system, door locks, and access control.

Calculate the total amount of money you spend on IT security: virus scanners firewall, consulting wages etc.

The total of this is how much you are prepared to spend to prevent an attack on the business.

NOW calculate how much money you have allocated to actually finding out the truth by conducting a TSCM sweep of your premises. All of the above have little or no effect on an eavesdropper attack on you without your knowledge.

Compare a few sweeps per year to your total budget, and the cost justifies itself.

What Professional Security Managers Do

Get a properly trained, equipped, licenced and insured TSCM specialist deployed to:

  1. Get the facts
  2. Sweep and search completely
  3. Get TSCM educated
  4. Build defences such as systems, equipment and protocols and
  5. Eliminate all threats immediately

If TSCM is not in your security budget, who will be blamed when there is an incident.

WHY TARGET me:

Soft Target

Surreptitious eavesdroppers go for the softest target they can find to access their workstation, papers, live conversation, vehicles, electronics, phones and friends.

A dishonest employee will attempt to cover their tracks by using another employee’s electronics or passcodes.

You may be targeted as the best method of bugging the business because:

  1. Perhaps you are seen as the only decision maker, the key player, or gatekeeper of all the critical information
  2. They perceive you as weak link and easily manipulated
  3. They think you are lax, or oblivious to security threats
  4. You are messy, disorganised, and talk loosely about company affairs
  5. You have access to sensitive information, of your own, and others
  6. They have something on you they think they can blackmail you with
  7. They know they have considerable influence on you (like, love, infatuated)
  8. You look stressed or distracted
  9. They think you do not care about security
  10. You do not get TSCM sweeps conducted at least yearly

Why do people spy on other people?

Humans are complex creatures who may not want to admit it, but they will always act within their own best interests at all times. Emotion drives behaviour so a raft of feeling will drive criminal behaviour as:

  1. Addiction: gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, lifestyle, ego,
  2. Desperation: financial troubles, blackmail,
  3. Stress: life’s pressures drive people to steal

TSCM is generally viewed by the public as “White Collar crime” and not easily understood by law enforcement, and is hard to prove. Many offenders when caught justify their actions to the authorities, and say they didn’t think it was a big deal.

As there should be no difference from robbing a bank with a gun; to stealing millions of dollars’ worth of research and design intellectual property, there seems to be in the eyes of the law.

You have a fiduciary duty to protect your business and family. Decide not to be a victim who thought it would not happen to them.

Who has opportunity to get “On target” to install the bug?

  1. Employees – either for personal gain like promotion or a bribe, or blackmail
  2. Service staff: cleaners, security, IT dept., building services, electricians, plumbers, phone company – these people move around unnoticed
  3. Friends – control freaks, jealousy, for fun, – “can I just borrow your phone? I’m out of power…”
  4. Visitors – to business or home – suppliers, contractors, deliveries (coffee, parcels, catering)
  5. Break and enter – these people such as Private investigators/ mercenaries/ Law Enforcement will enter usually when there are the least amount of people.
  6. Family – family always justify why they bug each other – well if my spouse/ child was not doing anything wrong they have nothing to worry about etc…

Why did they think they would get away with it

People commit electronic crime because they think that they will get away with it, as it will be:

  1. Hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt.
  2. They thought that they are smart, and their co-workers and employer were not.
  3. They thought no one would suspect someone would do such a thing, as that stuff only happens in movies etc.
  4. They thought their co-workers even if they suspected that they were bugged would not pay for a TSCM sweep, as they would think it’s the employer’s responsibility to keep the workplace safe and clear of threats.
  5. They thought employees would not speak up to management even if they felt they are being electronically harassed; as they would be seen as “Crazy, Drama Queens or Troublemakers” by wanting the business to pay for a TSCM sweep to cater to their “Paranoia”.
  6. They thought their employer, and co-workers were too ignorant about Electronic surveillance to think they were being bugged.
  7. They thought their employer was too cheap to pay for a TSCM sweep.
  8. They didn’t respect the security manager, and thought he/ she was stupid and had no idea of the sheer volume of bugging going on in the country. And therefore they wouldn’t organise a regular search into the security budget.
  9. When having access to the business accounts, no expenditure was allocated to electronic corporate counter surveillance. The only line items were perhaps: physical security, an alarm company, external cameras, and virus protection.
  10. There is no “Smoking Gun” unless caught in the act of installation or maintaining the bug.
  11. They understand the authorities have little knowledge and experience on how to deal with such technical matters, and law enforcement will not conduct a sweep upon request without proof of a serious crime.
  12. The penalties are light compared to other forms of theft performed “In person” Like a break and enter mugging or an armed holdup.
  13. The perceived Risk vs. Return is very high yielding. For instance a $50 GSM bug in someone’s office brings in millions to billions of dollars’ worth of information such as:
    • Timing of a hostile takeover/ merger/ leveraged buyout – affect share price
    • The timing of a product launch – affect share prices
    • Ignorance on law enforcement. Not equipped to deal with it

They say that a lot is not reported to the police due to embarrassment.

You are ALREADY being tracked right now by:

  1. You cellular phone
  2. Your electronic toll tags
  3. “Pre Crime : street surveillance cameras
  4. Private and public building “security” cameras
  5. The data you and your household download via your electronics (PC, smartphones etc) down your cable/ internet connection
  6. Every call, text and email recorded forever by law enforcement agencies, and where you were at the time you made them
  7. Psychological profiling from the photos, likes, fan pages, that you post on social media like Facebook, Pinterest, twitter, LinkedIn
  8. What your buying habits are vie eBay, PayPal,
  9. Automated licence plate readers, police and car parks now have
  10. Facial recognition software via your driver licence picture recorded into the government database
  11. Voice recognition software stored on smartphone databanks
  12. Data mining companies like Acxiom who’s business it is to compile as much information as possible on 200million people in north America alone.
  13. The government ASIO, ASIS , NSA they openly admit it.
  14. Credit filing companies
  15. Paperless account statements
  16. Credit card spending habits

When is the best time to contact a legitimate TSCM provider?

A: Just like Physical, IT, alarms, perimeter and door access and CCTV…. BEFORE you suspect you have been attacked, instead of after.

ALWAYS CALL US FROM A DEFINITELY CLEAN/DIFFERENT PHONE,

Such as a phone off site, as to not alert the bugger. If there are devices deployed in the building, we do not want to alert the bugger so that they remove them before the sweep.

When is the best time to undertake a TSCM sweep?

Preferably, we need to undertake the sweep in as “Least Alerting” mode as possible, in order to find and potentially catch the bugger, without alerting them first that we have started looking. We want to know if there was one at the time of the sweep and not give the bugger a chance to dismantle their assets in your business.

The best times for maximum impact and effectiveness would be

  • Usually out of normal business hours,
  • At random unscheduled times
  • Unannounced to general staff (so as not to give the eavesdropper any warning)
  • Only known to minimum management as possible, – we do not know who is bugging who. Often secretaries and personal assistants have been caught spying on their bosses

ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT: who wants your information?

Who is a trespasser? The unfortunate truth of human nature.

“Self-interest is the best horse in the race” – Paul Keating

1. Employees

Transient, disgruntled, ambitious, employees and ex-employees

Who do they really work for?

If truth be known their true loyalty is to themselves, their family, their community, their religion, their beliefs. You may provide an income to support these things and sustaining an income, and job stability is important. The justifications for people’s greed are always personal. The workforce is transient in this day and age and when a person is offered more pay and conditions, their loyalty will obviously have to shift.

Have the keys to the kingdom unsupervised. Bribed and blackmailed staff will be very motivated, and may not want to but feel they have to, especially to their new employer e.g. steal clients lists, financials, front running etc.

Hartman received a 4.5 year jail sentence; but immeasurable reputation damage was sustained to the firm who employed and trusted him. Hartman used confidential company information to insider trade for his own personal gain, at his employer’s expense.

John Hartman: Guilty of insider trading

2. Paedophiles and sex offenders

The main method of establishing contact by offenders to children is now electronic.

Kelsey Evers, Melissa Ball, Ashley Buckle were all secretly videotaped by Buckles stepfather. Bryan Duane Tiley was found guilty after the camera was discovered.

3. Diplomats

The infamous bugged cold war “gift” from Russia to the US Ambassador took a long time to be discovered. Unfortunately the damage was done.

4. Foreign nationals and tourists

Staff on working visas/ working holidays – have been notorious for relaying data back to their real employer overseas. Caught or uncaught, employees have their family, friends and “previous” employer typically in the same industry back in their home country, where they will eventually return to. Sponsored staff normally has to have previously gained the necessary skill sets from these employers to get a sponsorship from your business and therefore a working Visa.

5. Voyeurs

The multi-billion dollar pornography industry being recognised as the main driver of world internet and computer speeds. The free, easy access of this type of media now being electronically powered, gives an indication of human nature and everyone’s ability to operate electronics and software that may be used against you. Just because you may not understand how to operate or use something, doesn’t mean everyone else cannot.

Who has an interest in you? Your partner? Or your children? Maybe you should find out.

Caught on his own camera 3rd July 2011, a hidden camera in a women’s change room in a clothes store in Castle Hill shopping centre

6. Political Parties

If you are a politician on a large or small scale, you don’t have to get involved in, but must protect your party from smear campaigning, researchers, data miners, and debunkers.

7. Colleagues

If you are in competition with them for the promotion; promotions mean money and status, and getting ahead quicker. What might they do to get ahead? What have you already seen them do to get ahead? They wouldn’t do that to you as well would they? Or just everyone else.

8. Government Departments

Police, ASIS, ASIO, ATO, WorkCover, Industrial relations commission: all want to make sure you are doing what you are supposed to.

9. Labour and Pricing cost

Stakeholders: unions, employees, customers, suppliers.

10. Associates Blackmailed, Bribed or Intimidated

Friends, suppliers, customers, employees and their associates may be coerced, or forced to act against you. Cases have revealed the motives of people close to you were of being blackmailed, instead of personal financial gain, in order to keep their personal secrets undisclosed. E.g. affairs, hidden sexuality, or any indiscretion.

Edis Kayalar charged with trying to extort 100,000USD from Cindy Crawford for a potentially embarrassing photo of her daughter. Other forms of blackmail or intimidation may require espionage against you as payment for silence.

11. Business Competitors

They want your profit and you out of the picture.

You know yourself that management receive information on their competitors from ex- employees. When your employees are leaving, and have been promised a job, they are a big risk. They may not even bug your office till the last day to avoid suspicion. This way they can still have a data theft pipeline to help them in their new job work against you.

Business is war, and all’s fair in love and war…anon

12. Jealous People

Some people see your successes as their failures. Electronic eavesdropping is the easiest way to get what you’ve got without their fingerprints.

13. Spouses /Ex-Partners

Want as much of your life and assets as they can find out about. A Private investigators main business is asset location and catching cheating spouses.

14. Personal Vendettas

People and action groups take action against people, businesses and governments they perceive don’t believe in what they stand for.

What other individuals or groups may not like your industry, business, employees, success, affiliations, history, projects, or you personally; and will take any steps to spy on you for weaknesses to exploit.

The Anonymous group logo
 

15. Obsessed Fans

Famous or not, obsessed people can think they love you, (but also may resent the fact at the same time).

An obsessed fan chasing after Sylvester Stallone at 66th International Venice Film Festival
 

16. Media / Paparazzi

Time and time again tech savvy paparazzi intercept celebrities phone conversations, emails, homes, apartments, track their cars looking for anything to make a story.

17. Personal, Political, Religious or Altruistic motives

Some people may think that the public has the right to your information, privacy, life’s work, money family or assets. They may think you make too much money, or you do not deserve what you have.

For whatever reason, you cannot afford to let someone destroy you and your family, business or reputation.

Julian Assange is currently being pursued by the US Government for deciding to release their top secret information to the world
 
Contact your TSCM professional now

Maintain and keep your privacy

1800 008 726

Types of Bugs

Eavesdropping equipment by catagory

Types of eavesdropping equipment

Radio Frequency transmitters:

These units are transmitting audio and / or visual data away from the target location to a listening post elsewhere.

1. FM transmitter bugs
2. GSM bugs
3. Carrier current powered bugs (baby monitor)
4. Wireless bugs (2.4 Gig digital video and audio)
5. Burst Transmitters

Non transmitting audio/ visual devices

These are not sending out the audio visual, but storing the data to have the unit picked up then taken away for analysis.

6. Dictaphones
7. Mobile phones in flight mode (non-transmitting , but recording)
8. USB sticks
9. Fibre microphone
10. Key stroke loggers

Telephone Bugs

11. Hook switch bypass – for analog traditional phones
12. Bugs inside digital phone
13. VoIP interception programs (such as Wireshark / Kana and Abel etc)

Mobile interceptions

14. Cell phone interception devices
15. Software loaded into cell phone (requires brief access to your phone)
16. Base station cell tower impersonation (phone locks to the strongest signal, encryption is dropped to lowest level, then all your data is stolen)
17. Law enforcement – a court ordered TI’s ( Telephone intercepts) will take all your phone data such as calls, text and email directly from your telephone service provider)
18. Long range devices can be pointed at your window from outside, or towards open air conversations
Courtesy of BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3522137.stm

Common places where bugs are concealed

These particular photos have been taken from ebay to demonstrate how easy and cheap they are to obtain.

1. Smoke detectors
2. Power points, phone points, coaxial (TV) cable points
3. Furniture
4. Telephones and Telephone lines
5. Home electronics
6. Light switch controllers and wall bracket
7. Light fittings
8. Doors
9. Inside walls
10. Computer keyboard and mouse
11. Clocks
12. Lamps
13. USB sticks
14. Alarm panels
15. Air conditioning controllers and units
16. Clothing hook cameras

Where are the best locations to attack you electronically?

Get your peace of mind back again, and take control over your assets and space now.

1. Your mobile phone, it’s with you almost always – tracks, records and profiles you
2. Your business office – What’s the real price if all your data is compromised?
3. Your home office – is it as physically and electronically secure as the office?
4. Your home – Don’t let your family down
5. The offices of your colleagues – what do they have access to? What controls are placed on them?
6. Your car – parked inside or outside? Cars are easy to break into. Are you being tracked and listened to?
7. Your recreation locations and toys – is your ship leaking? Do you only ever talk business at the office?
8. Your boardroom – make your meetings secure again
9. Your PABX – is your communications hub wide open for attack?
10. Your computer network- where all your IP rests…. Damage or theft is your worst nightmare
11. Your modem/ Wi-Fi – the gateway to your business
1800 008 726

TSCM Providers equipment

Gain peace of mind by using trained operators with the world’s best TSCM equipment.

Recognised TSCM provider equipment manufacturers

There are few world recognised, tried and tested manufacturers of TSCM equipment, and many that are not.

The four main TSCM manufacturers of international renown that have been used by governments worldwide and are considered the best are (in no particular order):

  1. Research Electronic International USA
  2. Shearwater UK
  3. Winkelmann UK
  4. Audiotel international USA

A potential TSCM provider should disclose what equipment they use, if it is not built by the top 4, then don’t bother, and keep looking

You will not see these brands of equipment for sale on eBay unless it is second hand and potentially damaged.

Other companies make specific pieces of equipment that are excellent and well regarded. They may be general electronic specialists, who make equipment that TSCM technician’s use, but not specifically for TSCM use only. Some example of reliable equipment and software are:

  1. Berkley Varitronics
  2. Keysight (formerly Agilent)
  3. FLIR Systems
  4. Radio inspector

99% of TSCM detection equipment found on eBay will only cover approx. 1% of the Radio transmission spectrum.

You can only get peace of mind by using the trained operators with the best equipment. An operator cannot sweep without at least over 150k worth of equipment as a minimum, and also be trained by the manufacturer of the TSCM equipment.

The Equipment

24 GHz range spectrum Analyser.

This item hunts and locates all Radio Frequency signals in the target area.

Telephone and Line Analyser

This item hunts and locates all Radio Frequency signals in the target area.

Non Linear Junction Detector

This NLJD hunts for hidden electronics not transmitting, or that have run out of power

Infra-red Camera

Forward Looking Infra-Red hunts for heat sources from hidden electronics

Borescope

This is used for inspecting smaller areas like air vents, drains, roofs

Acoustic Amplifier

This is used to amplify any microphones that have been set up in a target area

Inspection tools

These are required to check voltages, pull equipment and fixtures apart for inspection

Questions to ask all TSCM providers

  1. Do they have REI, shearwater, Audiotel or Winkelmann equipment?
  2. Have they been trained with manufacturer in the UK or USA?
  3. Can they prove it they have any training on paper?

Be careful of “Fly-by-nighters” and “Walter Mittys” who claim to have secret government/ armed forces/ police training; especially from overseas. Ask for proof of their job role and skill sets, or forget them. Just because someone was in the Police Force or Armed Forces doesn’t mean they have any specific TSCM training whatsoever.

Does the TSCM provider have at LEAST:

  • A Spectrum Analyser
  • A Non Linear Junction detector
  • A telephone and line Analyser
  • An Infra- Red Camera
  • An RF Sniffer
  • Wi-Fi Network analysis hardware and software
  • VoIP inspection software
  • Physical search inspection tool set

There is not one piece of equipment that can scan everything that has been invented in the world to date. Someone walking around with just a single small box and an antenna is a fraud.

This is just an absolute baseline to conduct a TSCM search, if a person doesn’t have all of these, he is a pretender hoping you don’t know what to look for, and is physically unable to do the job.

TSCM Experience and Training

  • A TSCM operator must be able to prove where and when they were trained
  • Security guards have NO knowledge or training in TSCM in Australia
  • Licenced security risk assessors have no specific TSCM sweep training

What must be undertaken in a comprehensive TSCM sweep?

All Radio frequencies from bug transmissions and accounting for all signals in the area

All phones, phone lines, and IDF, MDF boards

A Physical search in conjunction with:

  • A non-linear junction detector
  • Infra-red camera
  • Borescope

There is no point checking just for transmissions, if you are being recorded by a USB stick or a Dictaphone that doesn’t transmit.

There is no point in checking for transmitting and non-transmitting bugs only; if your phones are bugged, and picking up in room audio as well.

ANTI EAVESDROPPING RECOMMENDATIONS

Quickly lock down your operation:

  1. Check backgrounds of all service staff and subcontractors such as cleaners who work unsupervised.
  2. Have all staff to sign water tight confidentiality contracts written by an IP specialist lawyer, and a industrial relations lawyer. Include warnings that they will be prosecuted as a matter of company policy if they are caught stealing data.
  3. Designate a responsible person to ensure that all computer terminals are turned on and off at Master Mains power at the end of the working day. So they cannot be turned on by cleaners etc.
  4. Buy tougher locks to pick such as KABA MAS.
  5. Think of who would be your weakest link that a spy would target e.g. loosest on the phone, messy desk, thinks the regulations do not apply to him/her.
  6. Install an Intruder alarm system with motion detection SMS / email notifications of entry out of hours in high value areas to management.
  7. Put all staff through data safety training, and encourage them to keep an eye out for warning signs, and other staff privacy regulation breakages.
  8. Have a risk assessment conducted by a qualified security risk assessor to find any and all gaps in your business’s security, and implement the recommendations to close the gaps.
  9. Create a security informed and aware culture in the business.
  10. Immediately respond to negative workers.

Most importantly: get your place swept by a competent TSCM technician to find out if you are being electronically attacked

Talk to a TSCM professional

New IT security Company policy:

  1. No USB sticks in the office except those provided by management with Identifiers.
  2. All company paper must be shredded onsite by the end of the day.
  3. All confidential information must be stored in a designated locked storage area.
  4. Passwords must be changed every 4 weeks.
  5. Computers must be set to sleep after 15minutes of inactivity.
  6. Computers must be logged off at all breaks and when away from the computer.
  7. No access to personal email, social media or personal phones inside work times or premises.
  8. Staff will be instantly dismissed for using another staff member’s computer, laptop, mobile device, desk phone or mobile phone without permission from their manager.
  9. All employees who are leaving will be closed off from accessing or removing company data once they have left.
  10. Enforce all staff to have a Clear desk at the end of their shift, and lock up all sensitive information.

Jobs for your IT Security Specialist

  1. Encrypt all sensitive electronic data immediately.
  2. Secure all your computer network, data and communications.
  3. Install an industrial grade firewall and virus scanner.
  4. Get your computer network to be able to log, monitor and audit employee online activity.
  5. Lock off sensitive data access with limited access to only those who have need of it, by department e.g. accounting/ marketing/ production/ sales.
  6. Have a secure data backup and recovery process.
1800 008 726