Corporate Explosionage Attacks

Cyber espionage is the act of attempting to penetrate an adversarial system for the purposes of extracting sensitive or protected data of either social or technical in nature. They are illicit activities that range from the commercial and economic to the political and strategic. They include small nuisance attacks to matters of high magnitude and importance like the national security and intelligence (Cornish 2012). Chinese cyber espionage has continued to escalate in recent years; it has continued to gain attention in many institutions including the media, the technology and information services industries, in scientific research and innovations, and as well as the general public. All these institutions are aware that china is taking part in the systematic development of cyber techniques that they intentionally use to invade international organizations, national governments, commercial companies, universities, and research institutes (Cornish, 2012).

I will then analyze the 3rd recommendation of the paper “Liberty and Security”, which demands that “surveillance must not be directed at illicit or illegitimate ends, such as the theft of trade secrets or obtaining commercial gain for domestic industries,” and argue that even if this motive may not be the main reason why foreign surveillance is conducted, it can be an unintended but useful – or rather unfair – consequence of easy collection of foreign intelligence, especially when considering the difference in technological capabilities between countries in the world. Finally, I am going to argue that, for the socio-economic benefit of globalization and international trade, it should be made equally harder for US intelligence agencies to collect information on non-US persons as it is to collect US-persons’ private information. Otherwise, this double standard can have – or maybe already has – negative consequences on trust between nations.

“All things are possible with the right technology!” said Helmut Schwartz, the recently appointed CEO of Globe Alive, Inc. (GAI), an Edmonton-based software company. Speaking at a monthly management meeting of GAI executives, Schwartz continued. “With the right technology in our organization, we can facilitate efficient communication between global partners, discern in-bound supply chain elements from out-bound shipments, expedite customer orders in a timely manner, electronically transfer funds around the world, and monitor employees to ensure they are being productive. And that list is by no means exhaustive. Believe me when I say, all things are possible with the right technology. When I shared

“Counterintelligence (CI) refers to information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted for or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations, persons, or international terrorist activities, however, not including personnel, physical, document or communications security programs.” (United States 1981)

Generally, intelligence systems are extensively concealed, which exposes them to potential abuse by those in charge. This results in abuse of human rights such as privacy rights that is detrimental to the very security that such systems ought to safeguard. As such, blowing the whistle on such activities can be an effective mechanism of exposing the ills that characterize intelligence systems. Furthermore, Scheurman (2014) argues that a requirement for whistleblower identity disclosure as proposed in Sagar’s framework enhances their opportunity to fulfill their obligations to justify their actions. They further state that whistleblower identity disclosure demonstrates civic mindedness. In addition, the disclosure of the whistle-blower’s identity helps to prevent

Thesis: In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed into law the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (“FISA”) to limit the power of the Executive Branch for the secret surveillance activities. Hence, to protect citizen privacy, FISA requires the government to attest that "the objective" of the surveillance is to gather foreign intelligence information. However, the difference between electronics surveillance conducted for national security and law enforcement purposes erected a “wall” in information sharing amid the Intelligence Community. There is an ongoing debate about the lack of information sharing to

This is one of the assignments from MISI 605 Intelligence Vulnerabilities course. The main idea of this assignment is to investigate various corporate espionage acts. In this modern world many multinational corporations are spying on another corporations to gather business secrets. From this assignment I have learned that various multinational corporations such as Google, the Microsoft Corporation, and Amazon etc. are spying on each other to gather business secrets. I have also learned that these corporations conduct espionage acts on each and every individual who works for them and who utilizes their services. One must be very care full in using any service, everyone thinks that the service is for free but the service

When the average American hears the word “spy” an image of a secret agent deep in the heart of Soviet territory, or a memory of his or her favorite James Bond movie probably pops into his or her head. This glorification of spying is no doubt a product of Hollywood’s dramatic representation of what they think a spy should be. The reality of what modern day spying consists of came as a shock to most when on June 5, 2013, an NSA contractor by the name of Edward Snowden executed what many consider to be the most significant leak of government information in U.S. history. Overnight, the American people learned that their government had been executing personal data collection of massive proportions. It was the U.S. Government’s worst fear, the people

Major tech companies were infuriated by their lack of consent and the negative effect it had on their brand. These companies responded by saying that they do not give the government direct access to their servers and only give information if they receive request for a certain account or through a court order. Technologies companies continue to suffer the consequences after Snowden’s

The United States today is becoming more and more dependant upon technological developments to gather intelligence. The “secret agents” of yesterday are very close to being obsolete. With technology becoming the prime source of intelligence gathering, there is an assumption that other countries are gathering intelligence in similar ways. The only way to combat intelligence gathering against the United States is to know what technological intelligence collection resources are being used for gathering information.

RSA’s actions stand in contrast to many corporations that do not acknowledge breaches of sensitive information systems for fear of alarming shareholders and exposing the corporation to lawsuits (Gross, 2011). Even when evidence points to nation-state involvement (most often China), many companies still refuse to acknowledge breaches. The “fear of offending the Chinese and jeopardizing their share of that country’s exploding markets” is reason enough to remain quiet (Gross). Despite mounting evidence, the “U.S. government, for its part, has been fecklessly circumspect in calling out the Chinese” (Gross).

“There is no place where espionage is not present” (Sun Tzu, n.d.). Since the creation of man, espionage has existed. Why is this? Men have tried to answer this question century after century, but to no avail. The Egyptians, Romans and present day empires fail to understand why someone commits espionage. Hence, espionage will never be completely defeated. The United States of America (US), like most developed countries in the world, rely on intelligence organizations to identity and prevent acts of espionage. However, what is an organization to do when it is one of your own employees who is committing espionage? In 1986, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) realized a very troubling fact; all of its human sources located in the Soviet

Financial resources are another determinant of an organization’s choice of their disclosure strategy. Incident information disclosure should bring more benefits to a company than associated costs. In this sense, financial constraints may even create so-called disclosure disincentive: a company will prefer to stay silent if there is no external discovery of an incident. It will allow avoiding costly legal actions and dedicating organizational resources and time to actual incident response, instead of dealing with media, law enforcement, and other agencies. Additionally, public disclosure of an incident can indirectly benefit a company’s competitor, when old customers or investors will decide to switch to the competitor in order to feel more

Industrial espionage is not an issue that came into existence just the other day; it has been an issue for a while now. Many companies have tried to do away with competition by using the tool, and other employees have tried to get back at their companies by relaying the secrets out. One such scenario of industrial espionage happened at the start of the millennium. Back then, the two main companies that were involved in computer software were Microsoft and Oracle (Hubbs, 2015). The then head of Oracle took issue with the way Microsoft made its dealings. He had this idea that Microsoft funded public interest, groups. The head of oracle went ahead to hire detectives to make sure that they prove the dealings between Microsoft and the public interest groups.

a. Provide at least five examples of organizations that have been or might be targets of espionage. Why would they be targeted? Who would want to steal their information?