Bugging Equipment

A search of several Mexican lawmakers’ offices turned up recording equipment, leading legislators to believe they have been spied on for years, a congressman said Wednesday.

Congressman Armando Rios said security personnel found microphones and other devices that seemed to have been installed years ago.

“Some of the equipment has newer technology, but other devices are from a long time ago, which leads us to believe they were installed years ago,” said Rios, a member of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

Offices of key committees and of several lawmakers from different political parties were bugged.

Congress president Guadalupe Acosta, also of the PRD, has filed a complaint with federal prosecutors, who have opened an investigation.

Acosta wouldn’t identify the lawmakers who were being spied on or who he thinks was behind the espionage. Rios blamed the government of President Felipe Calderon, who belongs to the conservative National Action Party, or PAN. Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire denied Rios’ accusations and said the government has done nothing illegal.

Mexico’s main intelligence agency allegedly spied on the government’s political opponents during the 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

After PAN candidate Vicente Fox won the 2000 presidential election, he announced that the agency, the Center for National Security and Investigation, would no longer spy on political opponents. However, in 2008, under Calderon, the agency hired a private company to monitor the activities of legislators.

Legislators complained they were being spied on but the government said it was simply collecting public information.

Several secretly recorded telephone conversations of government officials or politicians have been made public in Mexico in the last few years.

In 2006, the former governor of Puebla state, Mario Marin, was implicated in a revenge plot against a journalist after Mexican news media released a recorded telephone conversation. In it, he allegedly speaks with a businessman about punishing Lydia Cacho, who had written a book that accuses one of their acquaintances of being a child molester.

In 2010, a radio station broadcast a telephone conversation between then federal lawmaker Cesar Godoy and alleged drug trafficker Servando Gomez, known as “La Tuta.” In it, Godoy and Gomez express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter.

Shortly after the recording was released, Godoy, who is now a fugitive, was charged with aiding drug trafficking and money laundering.

Sources: blogspot.com, philstar.com

Mobile security is a hot issue as smartphone sales have outpaced PC sales. Smartphone malware is popping up at an unprecedented rate as people put more and more valuable information on their devices, using them to hold corporate secrets, conduct banking and function as digital wallets.

Hackers have taken notice and continue to find ways to breach the security of these devices.

Karsten Nohl, head of Berlin-based Security Research Labs, will be speaking at the Berlin hacking convention this week about the security vulnerabilities of GSM phones.

Nohl discovered flaws in a widely used wireless technology that could allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instruct them to send text messages or make calls. Nohl is a well-regarded expert on mobile security who identified a bug last year in GSM technology that makes calls vulnerable to tapping. He says he is calling attention to these flaws to pressure the industry into beefing up the security of their products.

They could use the vulnerability in the GSM technology — which is used by most telecom operators globally and by billions of people — to make calls or send texts to expensive, premium phone and messaging services in scams.

Security experts have previously identified a small number of viruses designed to infect smartphones, allowing hackers to take control of the devices and force them to make calls or send text messages. But Nohl said he has discovered a way to leverage previously disclosed vulnerabilities in GSM technology that could potentially threaten hundreds of thousands of phones.

GSM became the dominant mobile technology globally in the late 1990s. Although new and faster mobile networks have been rolled out across the world, operators have stuck to their GSM networks to support older phones and to offer service when new networks fail.

The Berlin convention takes places just days after U.S. security think tank Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) said its website had been hacked and that some names of corporate subscribers had been made public. Activist hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility.

Attacks on corporate landline phone systems are fairly common, often involving bogus premium-service phone lines that hackers set up in countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

Fraudsters make calls to the numbers from hacked business phone systems or mobile phones. They collect their cash and are gone before the activity is identified.

The phone users generally aren’t aware of the problem until they receive their bills. Telecommunications carriers often end up paying for some of the costs.

Even though Nohl will not present all details of possible attacks at the conference, he said hackers will usually replicate the code needed for attacks within a few weeks.

Mobile networks of Germany’s T-Mobile and France’s SFR offer their clients the best protection against online criminals wanting to intercept their calls or track their movements, according to a new ranking Nohl will unveil at his presentation.

The new ranking, at gsmmap.org, is conducted by security researchers, who hope this will heighten the awareness of operators and consumers on the vulnerability of their mobile communications.

Researchers reviewed 32 operators in 11 countries and rated their performance based on how easy it was for them to intercept the calls, impersonate someone’s device or track the device.

“None of the networks protects users very well,” Nohl said.

The sample is set to grow from 32 carriers dramatically next year as the tool enables anyone to participate in data gathering by downloading measuring software to their phones.

Nohl said mobile telecom operators could easily improve their client’s security in many cases by just updating their software.

Read entire story@ yahoo

Rupert Murdoch’s company said it has agreed to pay 2 million pounds ($3.2 million) to the family of a murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked by the News of the World tabloid.

News International, the U.K. newspaper publishing division of News Corp, and the family of Milly Dowler confirmed the settlement in a joint statement.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World in July after evidence emerged that its reporters had eavesdropped on the telephone voice mail messages of the 13-year-old who disappeared in 2002 and was later found murdered.

The statement said Murdoch also will donate 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to charities chosen by the Dowler family.

“Nothing that has been agreed will ever bring back Milly or undo the traumas of her disappearance and the horrendous murder trial earlier this year,” the Dowlers said in the statement. “The only way that a fitting tribute could be agreed was to ensure that a very substantial donation to charity was made in Milly’s memory. We hope that projects will be undertaken so that some good can come from this.”

The revelation that reporters eavesdropped on Milly Dowler’s voice mail messages while police were searching for her — and mounting evidence that phone hacking was routine at the newspaper — shook Murdoch’s media empire, and sent tremors through Britain’s political, police and media establishments.

Murdoch’s News Corp also faced pressure at last Friday’s annual meeting. Many shareholders are unhappy about his dual role of chief executive and chairman, and some investors are calling for several directors — including his sons James and Lachlan — to step aside.

The phone hacking scandal has already forced the resignation of two of London’s top police officers, ousted executives at Murdoch’s News Corp. and claimed the job of Prime Minister David Cameron’s former spin doctor, Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor.

Murdoch’s global News Corp. has expressed contrition, launched an internal inquiry and set aside 20 million pounds ($32 million) to compensate victims, who could number in their hundreds. Detectives have informed more than 450 people that they might have been spied on by the newspaper.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Read story@ msnbc

The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warned that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.”

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI or a hacker and activate the microphone–all without the owner knowing it happened.

Someone wrote in to ask us if a device known as a BlackBerry security plug  (also variously known as a “pin”, “nib”, or “dongle”) could provide protection against this threat. I haven’t been able to find the answer to this question. If you know, please feel free to comment.

I can tell you that our MSI Detective Services offers electronic countermeasure sweeps of cell phones and our U-Spy Store sells countersurveillance equipment. To find out more, visit either http://www.detectiveservices.com/services/debugging/ or view our countersurveillance products at http://www.uspystore.com/counter-surveillance.html