From Dark Net Research to Real World Safety Issue

On a recent engagement by the MSI Intelligence team, our client had us researching the dark net to discover threats against their global brands. This is a normal and methodology-driven process for the team and the TigerTrax™ platform has been optimized for this work for several years.

We’ve seen plenty of physical threats against clients before. In particular, our threat intelligence and brand monitoring services for professional sports teams have identified several significant threats of violence in the last few years. Unfortunately, this is much more common for high visibility brands and organizations than you might otherwise assume.

In this particular instance, conversations were flagged by TigerTrax from underground forums that were discussing physical attacks against the particular brand. The descriptions were detailed, politically motivated and threatened harm to employees and potentially the public. We immediately reported the issue and provided the captured data to the client. The client reviewed the conversations and correlated them with other physical security occurrences that had been reported by their employees. In today’s world, such threats require vigilant attention and a rapid response.

In this case, the client was able to turn our identified data into insights by using it to gain context from their internal security issue reporting system. From those insights, they were able to quickly launch an awareness campaign for their employees in the areas identified, report the issue to localized law enforcement and invest in additional fire and safety controls for their locations. We may never know if these efforts were truly effective, but if they prevented even a single occurrence of violence or saved a single human life, then that is a strong victory.

Security is often about working against things so that they don’t happen – making it abstract, sometimes frustrating and difficult to explain to some audiences. But, when you can act on binary data as intelligence and use it to prevent violence in the kinetic world, that is the highest of security goals! That is the reason we built TigerTrax and offer the types of intelligence services we do to mature organizations. We believe that insights like these can make a difference and we are proud to help our clients achieve them.

Great Article on Spotting Skimmers

I ran across this great article with tips on spotting credit card skimmers. Check it out for some pretty good info.

Ever wondered about the prices that criminals pay for skimmers? We recently studied this and found that the average price for magnetic stripe skimmers was between $100 – $300 US. Kits that include cameras and other techniques for also capturing PIN data (ATM & Chip/PIN transactions) were around 10x that amount on the black market. Home grown solutions are significantly cheaper to build, but often lack the subtlety and camouflage of the more “commercial” offerings.

By the way, note that even where Chip and PIN transactions have become the norm (outside the US), capturing the magnetic track data is still useful for attackers to focus on e-commerce and other card holder not present transactions.

Just a few things to think about… While the credit card theft underground is robust, interesting and dynamic, companies and issuers are working hard to stay on top of things. Unfortunately, the economics involved is complex, and attackers are continually refining all phases of their operations.  

A Reminder About the IoT Future…

This article has been making the rounds about a researcher who has developed a tool set that can turn a Mattel toy into a “magic” garage door opener for most garage doors. The uses of opening someone else’s garage doors seem pretty obvious, so we will leave that to the reader….

But, this is an excellent moment to pause and discuss what happens when so many things in and around our lives become Internet connected, remotely managed or “smart”. Today, it seems everything from door locks, to watches and from refrigerators to toilets are getting embedded digital intelligence. That’s a lot of hackable stuff in your life. 

I have been doing some research on beacon technology recently, and how they are being used to track consumer behaviors. I have been working with some clients that use TigerTrax™ to track consumer data and some of that work is simply amazing. As vendor knowledge seeps into your home and everyday life, even more impacts, privacy issues (and lets face it…) cool features will emerge. The problem with all of these things is that they are a double edged sword. Attackers can use them too. They can be manipulated, mis-used, invasive, infected and some can be outright dangerous (consider refrigerator malware….). 

Once again, technology is becoming ubiquitous. It offers both benefits and some things to consider. My point here is just to consider both sides of that coin the next time you face a buying decision. The world, and you, could benefit from more privacy consideration at the point of purchase… 🙂