A review of corporate/industrial espionage tactics from the perspective of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo character, Lisbeth Salander, and James Bond.

1. Lisbeth Salander vs James Bond

2. The 4 principal motivators of betrayals
Espionage Tactics
Famous Spies in History

3.  Every fortune 500 organization has an
intelligence program under some other title
› Competitive intelligence, corporate intel,
business analysis
 Corporate spies are almost never caught,
and almost never convicted, and never
serve more than 1 year in a “corporate spy”
prison.

4.  MI6 operative
 Relies on Humans as
sources of intel
 Somehow explodes
everything
 Makes love to pretty
ladies

5.  Works as a PI
 Socially unacceptable
 Intelligence comes through technical
means
 Also makes love to pretty ladies

6.  Government Employees:
› CIA, Marines, Homeland security
› Provide intel and counter intel services
 Corporate Competitive Intelligence employees
› Work for an organization to provide intel on their
competitors
› Mostly ethical practices
 Private Corporate Spies
› Individuals or private organizations that sell secrets
between companies
› Focused, well paid, completely illegal

8.  Break into network steal documents
 Phishing campaign steals creds
 Malware targeting a company

9. BenefitsCosts
 Direct unfettered access to intelligence
 No middlemen
 Limited risk of inflation, lying
 Lower risk of being caught
 More defense measures are in place
compared to HUMINT
 Clearly defined laws regarding IP,
hacking, etc

10.  Turning a secretary to tell you who the
CEO is meeting with
 Paying a VP for financial information
 Convincing a QA dept to give you
access to products

11. BenefitsCosts
 Information directly from the source
 Can be the “fall guy”
 Can circumvent any network security
measures
 Context for intelligence
 The most sensitive information is in small
circles
 Possibility for betrayal, lying, or inflating
information
 Humans need coddling

12. Money: I will pay you $50,000.
Ideology: Do it for the greater good of your
country!
Coersion: If you don’t do this, your wife will find
out about your mistress.
Ego: I’ve been watching you and you’re the best
in the business. I need your help.

14.  Peter is going through a divorce
 Alex – Russian spy – hangs out in bars and coffee shops near targeted
areas of DC
 Alex becomes Peter’s friend over 2 months
 Alex pays Peter for phone number of people inside his company
 Tradecraft:
› Used pass phrases to leave messages and confirm the identity while trading
information
› Make a chalk mark on the mailbox
 Alex gets one of his other ops to exchange information about “Star
Wars”
 Peter social engineers an IT admin fixing the wiring closet
 Peter steals the documents off the network and exfiltrates it back to
Moscow

15.  Primary Motivator: Money
 Spies are friendly
 Tradecraft
› Chalk mailbox
› Pass phrases

17.  Started working for AMD in 1979
 Walks up to the Cuban embassy in 1982 and says “I want
to be spy”
 1989 communism is boring
 1992 he turns himself into the CIA becomes a double
agent
 1992 he goes to work for Intel
 1994 he flies to South America and sells Pentium secrets
 Tries to sell the secrets to North Korea, China, Iran, and
AMD

18.  Walked around picking up random documents and
photo copying them
 Used lots of photo copiers so security would never
notice
 Guards only looked for green or blue paper
 Charismatic
› Access to new tech was just because his friends gave it to
him
› Offered to do favors for everyone
› Always befriended secretaries

19.  Primary Motivation: Ideology
 Good employees make good spies
 Security theatre