Money laundering, Shape shifting, Satellite Spying, and You

When was the last time that you were in a Washington DC conference room with a Hollywood actress, the CISO of In-Q-Tel, two product managers from DARPA, an expert in money laundering, a world-class hacker, a spokesman for George Clooney and John Prendergast's Satellite Sentinel Project, an expert on open source warfare and a former CIA station chief (and that's not all of our speakers)? I'm guessing never because the Suits and Spooks Anti-Conference doesn't follow trends. It breaks them. This one day event will include breakfast, lunch, and a cocktail reception hosted by the Business Executives for National Security (BENS) on the 24th floor of the Waterview Conference Center overlooking the Potomac river and the Capital.

The early bird registration ($395) is coming to a close at the end of business Friday, January 6th. We have extra low rates for U.S. government employees ($295) and for university faculty and students ($195). Everyone who attends will also receive a signed copy of the second edition of my book "Inside Cyber Warfare" (O'Reilly Media 2011). We want to re-shape the way that we think about security and we have room for up to 100 innovative thinkers and decision makers across a multitude of disciplines - NOT just information security. Please be a part of Suits and Spooks in Washington DC next month. The discussions and networking will be truly memorable. Register here today.

Related:
The Use of Covert Cyber Counter Strikes As Active Defense
Spontaneous Analysis of Unstructured Speech for Idea Development using Palantir
George Clooney's Satellite Sentinel Project

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WaPo's "extreme" precautions for travel to China? Hardly.

Today's Washington Post article "In China, Business travelers take extreme precautions to avoid cyberespionage" barely cracks the surface of what occurs in China and other nation states who engage in cyber-espionage. I founded a company on that very premise in 2010 and am still amazed at how easily state actors can obtain exactly what they want from visiting C-level executives without anyone knowing it. In fact, I've had this very conversation with Joel Brenner just recently (Brenner is extensively quoted in the WaPo article).
A standard travel kit for Taia Global clients includes a pre-paid cell phone and an iPad or a hardened laptop with no documents stored on the hard drive. Instead, everything that the executive needs to work on is stored on an encrypted IronKey flash drive. We provide a variety of e-mail alternatives for executives to choose from which keep them from directly communicating with their home network. Access to free WiFi hotspots at the airport, the hotel, or anywhere else in-country is heavily discouraged. And no device ever re-connects with the corporate network after a trip.

These are realistic, not extreme, precautions and they're based upon real-life incidents that happen on a daily basis; not only in the PRC, but in many developed and developing countries including the EU. The risk factor isn't the same for everyone. Part of our work for our clients is to tell them what their CRI (Cyber Risk Index) is when they travel. The CRI varies according to what industry an executive is in, his position at his company, and which country he's visiting. Just like in network security, there is never a one-size-fits-all solution.

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