Spy Clues Are Important
— Get to know the spy clues. Low-cost spy technology is allowing former shoulder-surfing cheaters, from businesses to governments and even in homes, to steal valuable information, invade personal privacy, monitor, and thrive at your expense.
Behavioral Spy Clues
Remember the shoulder-surfing cheaters in school who always wanted to copy your homework and cheat on tests? They are still with us, and they still cheat and steal. These former shoulder-surfing cheaters have grown up, and they are still looking over your shoulder with advanced technology. The good news is today you can fight back, and you won’t be called a squealer.
Letting them pick your intellectual pockets is no longer an option, as there is too much at stake and you likely have a legal responsibility to protect.
With help, you can identify behavioral activities that indicate spying is happening, or is about to happen. You just have to trust your good instincts. Pay attention to that queasy feeling you get when:
- When friends or associates let slip information that no one should know.
- When you suspect that your security manager isn’t skilled in handling industrial espionage.
- When your staff seems friendly with your competitors.
- If employees are talking about profitability.
- Or when you hear that a key employee has entrepreneurial thoughts.
These are some common warning signs that usually precede information theft, electronic eavesdropping, and general espionage.
You hated shoulder-surfing cheaters when you were in school. You want to do something about it, but what?
Situational Spy Clues
Whenever confidential or sensitive information is leaked to the media, that is a clue, and there is a problem. When your business and marketing plans become common knowledge in your industry, it is a clue. If an employee leaves without giving notice and/or if your competition is hiring your former staff, these are clues.
There are physical clues that may indicate electronic surveillance: a gift from someone you don’t trust, dust has fallen from the ceiling or wall onto the floor or furniture, a new smoke detector that was not there before, employees report finding objects moved on their desks, pieces of tape found under conference tables, and reports of someone flying a drone near your location over the weekend.
There are also some very substantial clues. If you are being blackmailed, you are being audited unexpectedly, have recently and abruptly lost one or more key clients, or are being outmaneuvered in negotiations a bit too quickly, these are substantial clues.
Like that funny noise your car just started making, these issues are not going to solve themselves; they are going to get worse!
Spy Clues You Can Use
Those paranoid feelings might actually have good reasons! Don’t ignore the warning signs. Thoughts of being bugged, wiretapped, tracked, or of business espionage don’t normally occur to people.
Trust your instincts when you feel like any of the following:
- You are being followed or watched.
- Your car has been ‘adjusted’.
- Sensitive information is missing.
- You find unusual electronics.
- Things are not as they should be.
- You hear strange noises on your phone.
- Your mobile phone power drops very quickly.
- You receive strange texts on your mobile phone.
- Your mobile phone is very warm when not in use.
- Or someone has recently asked to use your phone.
Don’t ignore the spy clues.
Espionage Tradecraft is Sneaky
If you think you have found a bug, call in a specialist. The search has just begun.
The Spy Clues Trick – Don’t Fall For It
If the spy thinks the target is suspicious, they plant a bug that is easy to find. Most people will think their problems are over once a bug is found. They tend to keep it a secret, not wanting to admit to others that they have been “had.” The real bugs, however, will remain in place and provide even better information. Why? Because the target, having found “the bug,” will have a false sense of security and will now talk more freely.
Bugging experts know how to keep their devices from being detected, from burying them in electronic equipment to putting them into the actual construction of rooms. People who don’t want their conversations bugged frequently authorize sweeps of sensitive areas. What they find in those sweeps defines the course of businesses and their global allies.
Wide-reaching video technology is being used both for and against law enforcement, consumers, and the general public. Some of it helps protect us, however, some of it is being used for voyeuristic and espionage purposes. Spy cameras hidden in areas with an expectation of privacy, such as restrooms, changing areas, gyms, hotel rooms, and schools, are reported in the news regularly. Keep in mind that this accounts for only the spycams that are discovered. The vast majority of these video bugs are never found, and the videos they capture are traded like baseball cards on the internet.
You have an obligation to protect employees and other visitors to your premises, not to mention your children, your other loved ones, and yourself. Not doing so has led to expensive lawsuits, loss of customer goodwill, and embarrassment and humiliation for the victims. A “Recording in the Workplace Policy” and an inspection plan show due diligence on the part of businesses. Online spycam detection training is available to raise personal awareness. With high-definition covert spy cameras and transmitters selling on eBay for less than $50, awareness training is a necessity, like learning to lock doors, and not clicking on suspicious email links.
School days are over. Today, you know the spy clues.
You don’t have to be a victim. Those shoulder-surfing cheaters and homework-snatching bullies from your younger days only have their sneakiness and your indifference on their side today. Their once strong-arm strength is now flabby. Time to kick butt.
You have on your side: life experience, excellent instincts, the law, and highly qualified security consultants who specialize in electronic countermeasures (TSCM), information security and counterespionage consultants. Using these tools can be very profitable, increase your privacy and safety, and may even save your business.
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Murray Associates is an independent security consulting firm, providing eavesdropping detection and counterespionage services to business, government and at-risk individuals.
Headquartered in the New York metropolitan area, Murray Associates can assist you quickly throughout the United States and internationally.
EXTRAS:
• More security tips, spy and privacy news at spybusters.blogspot.com. Be sure to sign up for the free email updates.
• Concerned about Spy Cameras? Learn how to detect them.
