Cyber Espionage and Illegitimate Information Retrieval

One of the most serious threats to a modern country’s trade, industry and long-term economic development is cyber espionage and insiders. The activities are directed against high-technological industries and companies with advanced basic research. The defence and telecoms sectors are of particular interest, just as biotechnics, medical and material technology. Behind this kind of espionage there may be individual states and security services as well as competing companies. One trend is that criminal players are getting involved both as thieves and fences of information. Computerisation and the development of the Internet drastically increase the possibility of procuring sensitive information through illegal means. This can be done in different ways. In the paper the convergence between industrialand cyber espionage are discussed. A number of examples are provided of different kinds of espionage as well as some of the methods that is used to collect information over the Internet – such as signals intelligence, monitoring of traffic, penetration and overtaking of computers with the aid of trojans. Examples are given on succesful cybertheft operations such as the operation Buckshot Yankee and the Chinese Ghostnet. The paper ends with a discussion on how to improve information security in organisations in order to reduce the risks for illegitimate information drainage. KEyWoRdS Buckshot Yankee, Cyber Espionage, Echelon, Ghostnet, Information Theft, PRISM, Signal Intelligence, SORM The difference between espionage in the traditional sense and industrial espionage is marginal. Both are conducted in similar ways and with the same methods, although targets may differ. In principle, this is the world of organised theft of information. Most countries and companies look for information on their opponents and competitors. Even friendly nations and companies can be of interest. Using open source information is legal and in no way controversial. It is part of the game. The problem lies in the transition from what is legally acceptable to criminal behaviour. The dividing line can be related to what methods are used, whether ethical guidelines are broken in order to acquire information and whether the measures violate the laws of a country or not. Different nations have different legal systems; an activity can be viewed as criminal in one country, but be legal in another. This paper discuss the development of cyber espionage in a broad sense, examples are given on methods to be used in order to collect information. The paper ends with a short discussion on how to protect an organisation from illegitimate information gathering.