Section 9.2 Spies | Real World Linux Security Prentice Hall Ptr Open Source Technology Series

9.2 Spies

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Real spies are not like James Bond. Rather, they are quiet unassuming types of great patience and intelligence who do this for a living. By the time you read this, the governments in Australia, Britain, and possibly even the U.S. may have the legal right to try to get into your computers and rummage for data and even may have the legal right to disable any encryption or other security protection you have implemented to enable easier tapping of your data.

Unfortunately, this is of concern for the vast majority of SysAdmins who are not spies and who are not involved in criminal organizations. Suppose you are a legitimate shipping company. If the government suspects that someone might try to ship a container of illegal computers using your company, they might want to be able to track the shipment and thus tap into your computer. They may not even need a court order and they certainly do not need to tell you.

If they then disable some of your security to make it easier to track said shipment, this endangers your unrelated data. Naturally the government will not reimburse you for your losses due to someone taking advantage of this government-enabled security breach. This is a reason to be on guard for this and to protect against it.

9.2.1 Industrial Spies

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Many SysAdmins do not worry enough about industrial spies. These are your competitors trying to get your customer lists, your future marketing plans, and designs and ideas for your new products. Although this might be sanctioned at a high level of said competitor, more likely it is an individual engineer, possibly at the request of a manager, taking it upon himself. He may not reveal to his upper management how he got the information.

According to the FBI's Atlanta bureau, a significant percentage of computer intrusions is due to industrial espionage. According to the security experts at the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal, even a sizable percentage of intrusions to get U.S. defense secrets is for the use of other companies to gain competitive advantage in bidding for U.S. defense contracts.

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