Hello Class, In the field of business espionage, the use of electronic eavesdropping or other electronic penetrations persists at an alarmingly high pace. This is particularly valid now that miniaturization has advanced, allowing for smaller devices and easier concealment inside daily objects like pens, glasses, and ties. Spies that use electronic eavesdropping and other gadgets are becoming more inventive in their spying. They perform corporate espionage using a wide variety of sophisticated tactics and cutting-edge technologies. It is important that counter-intelligence professionals adapt to these emerging technologies and methods. Social engineers often focus on people’s innate helpfulness as well as their flaws. For example, they could contact the designated employee with a pressing issue that necessitates immediate attention. It may also involve making an appeal of ego, authority, or greed. Both of these are popular social engineering strategies. Many, if not all, forms of vulnerabilities include social engineering. Virus writers employ social engineering techniques to persuade people to open malware-laden email attachments, phishers employ social engineering to persuade people to divulge confidential information, scare-ware vendors employ social engineering to scare people into installing software that is ineffective at best and harmful at worst. In 1998, a dairy business in the Philippines lost a lot of contracts. Underbidding was a consistent problem for the dairy business. To improve its policy, the firm started to reverse engineer its pricing and methodology. However, whenever they made changes, their main opponent seemed to change as well, and they continued to lose. Management knew they had a different kind of issue at this point, possibly an internal source was feeding the competition details. They stepped up their efforts to safeguard bid documents, confining it to a secure work center conference space. Even then, the issues continued. Finally, they were told to consider a TSCM sweep by legal counsel. The TSCM team found nothing in the office building, but when they searched the public telephone exchange location, they discovered a recording system connected to their office telephone lines. Their rivals had paid Philippine National Police officers to enter the office complex, display their identity to building security officers, and obtain entry to the public telephone exchange, where they installed telephone tap equipment that was both recorded and transmitted. There was no structured education and awareness program in place, especially prior to arrival in a foreign country. Similarly, there was no travel protection for travelers to inform them of the dangers they would encounter while traveling in the United States, Europe, Asia, or Africa. Almost no one in the office was aware of the attack, and there was no systematic program for monitoring alleged corporate espionage. Defense officials were still untrained in the new r ...

1. Hello Class,
In the field of business espionage, the use of electronic
eavesdropping or other electronic penetrations persists at an
alarmingly high pace. This is particularly valid now that
miniaturization has advanced, allowing for smaller devices and
easier concealment inside daily objects like pens, glasses, and
ties. Spies that use electronic eavesdropping and other gadgets
are becoming more inventive in their spying. They perform
corporate espionage using a wide variety of sophisticated tactics
and cutting-edge technologies. It is important that counter-
intelligence professionals adapt to these emerging technologies
and methods.
Social engineers often focus on people’s innate helpfulness as
well as their flaws. For example, they could contact the
designated employee with a pressing issue that necessitates
immediate attention. It may also involve making an appeal of
ego, authority, or greed. Both of these are popular social
engineering strategies. Many, if not all, forms of vulnerabilities
include social engineering. Virus writers employ social
engineering techniques to persuade people to open malware-
laden email attachments, phishers employ social engineering to
persuade people to divulge confidential information, scare-ware
vendors employ social engineering to scare people into
installing software that is ineffective at best and harmful at
worst.
In 1998, a dairy business in the Philippines lost a lot of
contracts. Underbidding was a consistent problem for the dairy
business. To improve its policy, the firm started to reverse
engineer its pricing and methodology. However, whenever they
made changes, their main opponent seemed to change as well,
and they continued to lose. Management knew they had a

2. different kind of issue at this point, possibly an internal source
was feeding the competition details. They stepped up their
efforts to safeguard bid documents, confining it to a secure
work center conference space. Even then, the issues continued.
Finally, they were told to consider a TSCM sweep by legal
counsel. The TSCM team found nothing in the office building,
but when they searched the public telephone exchange location,
they discovered a recording system connected to their office
telephone lines. Their rivals had paid Philippine National Police
officers to enter the office complex, display their identity to
building security officers, and obtain entry to the public
telephone exchange, where they installed telephone tap
equipment that was both recorded and transmitted.
There was no structured education and awareness program in
place, especially prior to arrival in a foreign country. Similarly,
there was no travel protection for travelers to inform them of
the dangers they would encounter while traveling in the United
States, Europe, Asia, or Africa. Almost no one in the office was
aware of the attack, and there was no systematic program for
monitoring alleged corporate espionage. Defense officials were
still untrained in the new risks from corporate espionage and
only saw preventive security measures from a physical security
perspective.
-Kevin
Wimmer, C. B. (2015). Business espionage: Risks, threats, and
countermeasures. ProQuest Ebook
Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
The threats from electronic espionage are numerous and varied.
When adding the social engineering component, the security
challenges for organizations are immense. In today's global
economy, businesses are made or broken on their ability to

3. connect with customers and clients. However, it is these
avenues of connection that create the most exposure to the
threats of misappropriation and ultimately loss.
Company communications can be easily compromised if not
made a priority of address within an organization. Email, text,
and increasing more applications such as Whatsapp are used to
communicate sensitive information. A mistake from an end user
could be costly. Gone are the days where the biggest worry was
through social engineering, where you are looking for an
electronic ear placed in the meeting room. Now, it’s possible to
just get into someone’s phone and lift crucial information
without their knowledge.
Companies, and even criminals can get their hands on the same
industrial spyware that the governments have.
For security managers, they must assume that it is taking place,
or at the least attempts to are. This applies to large and small
companies alike. You would assume that an organization like
Equifax, who deals with millions of people’s financial
information would be fortified against such intrusions. But the
truth is that no one is immune. We saw in the lesson that $143
million people had information such as social security numbers
accessed via the Equifax hack. 209,000 credit card numbers
were accessed (Matthews, 2017).
If you are a security professional, its easy to feel like you’re
playing catch up, because the truth is, we are. It is difficult to
keep up with the technology. Microphones and cameras are now
an integral part of lives, but this also means that items with
extremely high spy value will be available commercially. Inside
jobs can be pulled off without even arousing suspicion.
Therefore, it is important to always operate with the assumption
that someone or something is actively attempting to surveil.
L.Booker
Reference:
Matthews, L. (2017). Equifax data breach impacts 143 million
Americans. Forbes. Retrieved from

4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/leemathews/2017/09/07/equifax-
data-breach-impacts-143-million-americans/#50c6a6e4356f
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