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The USA Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gives some valuable information on methods that infiltrators use to obtain your intellectual property:

Common Tactics:

• Computer hacking! (Electronic-device hacking)
  • A visitor connects an electronic device to your system, such as a thumb drive, that adds malware or downloads your information
  • Someone hacks into your network via a spear phishing attack
  • An unattended laptop is accessed or stolen
• On-site visits to your company:
  • Unauthorized photography or computer access. Unauthorized entry into restricted areas
  • Asking questions outside the scope of the visit
• Review of publicly available sources. Are you sharing too much information?
• Obtains your surplus equipment. Thousands of pages of stored information may still reside in the memory of a copier, printer, fax machine, etc
• Employment solicitation (try to hire your key employees)
• Theft or unauthorized photography of products at trade shows
• Burglary (including copying of restricted documents where the originals stay in-house)
• Dumpster diving – finding information in your company’s trash
• Joint ventures
• Front companies
• Unsolicited requests for information
• Elicitation – developing a friendship with an employee with the intention of obtaining restricted data or products. The employee will see someone who appears non-threatening and interested in his/her work
• Electronic surveillance (listening devices in your hotel room, phone hacking, etc.)

(Source: US FBI Intellectual Property Protection)

Our Corporate Investigations Team can assist with any burglaries, theft or breaches of security, where we will investigate the theft of your intellectual property and identify the offender/s. For information on our Electronic Bug Sweeps or Corporate Investigations please contact Team Manager Andrew O’Reilly.

Electronic Bug Sweeps are an effective countermeasure to protect your business from infiltrators and disgruntled insiders. The FBI raises a valid issue that you should not only concentrate on protecting your workplace, but also on protecting areas outside the workplace, wherever you conduct business, such as your accommodation whilst travelling. You also need to protect your private residence, vehicle, boat and holiday home etc., as all of these areas are vulnerable to electronic surveillance.   Our Electronic Bug Sweeping Team can assist you with advice on preventing listening device infiltration and can test to ensure your conversations are not being listened in on.

A laser listening device enables an infiltrator the ability to listen in on conversations from a distant building without having to install a listening device bug at the location. Many laser listening devices have regular looking 35mm camera housings, with adapted electronics that produce and emit a laser beam. The laser beam is not visible to the naked eye and is pointed at a window of the target building. The laser beam once hitting the window will pick up any reverberation caused by noise (such as conversations) and bounce back to the emitting laser listening device, where the conversations can be listened to and recorded.

Dependant on the quality of the laser listening device, a laser listening device can be a very effective tool to an infiltrator.

The downside with using a laser listening device is that to be effective, the laser listening device has to be positioned within line of site and directly opposite the target window to get decent audio transmissions. As the laser listening device will be picking up all noise that reverberates on the target window, if the location of the building is in a noisy environment, such as trucks continually passing, then good quality audio will be difficult to obtain.

The Webster Group bug sweeping team, using sophisticated counter surveillance equipment, will detect any laser listening devices being used to infiltrate your premises. If you suspect that your premises are compromised by laser intrusion or would like more information on our laser listening device testing and preventative options, please contact our Team Manager Andrew O’Reilly on 0413 377433 aoreilly@ipp.com.au