Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended Reading for CI & Security Professionals, February 14, 2007
Ira Winkler does a superb job in illustrating methods of collecting 'business intelligence' on companies through the exploitation of basic human weaknesses and technical vulnerabilities. While some of the technical information contained within is now outdated, much of it is still relevant... not to mention the social engineering tactics covered.
The structure of "Corporate Espionage" is ideal, with Winkler discussing espionage concepts, followed by case studies and countermeasures. It almost reads like a manual, and an effective one at that. Winkler worked at NSA for 10 years ---where paranoia is a way of life--- so it is no surprise that he is good at what he does, and that he takes a very methodical approach to handling security issues.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cut your security risks with effective countermeasures. , December 24, 2005
As the current Director of Technology for the National Computer Security Asociation and a former NSA agent (10+ years), Ira Winkler is 'the' individual to address this topic. According to resources such as the FBI, industrial espionage costs US corporations between 24 and 100 billion dollars every year.
This book divided into three sections.
Part one discusses basic espionage concepts and your companay's 'risk equation.' Spies don't care about the form in which the information they seek comes. It can be from a computer, formal or draft documents, scrap paper or internal correspondence. Aside from domestic spies, there are an estimated 100+ nations that are currently engaging in espionage against US companies. Risk level is determined by Threat x Vulnerability x Value / Countermeasures.
Part two contains case studies to show how a breach occurs. One study concerns William Geade and how he stole over a billion dollars worth of information from AMD and Intel. Another study includes the author himself, who hired in (under cover) as a temp at NCC in 1995. Within 2 days Mr. Winkler had compromised 28 of the 29 top development projects exposing many breach points.
Part three is titled 'What You Can Do' and goes over many effective countermeasures that you can employ right now. It is jam packed with many ideas, most of them simple, that will tighten your security. Countermeasures are broken down into four areas: Operations, Personell, Physical and Techincal.
Five Stars
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Insider Threat, and Poor Management = Major Losses, April 8, 2000
Ira, a former National Security Agency professional, made a name for himself in his second career as a corporate electronic security specialist by using a combination of common sense and basic work-arounds to penetrate and download millions if not billions of dollars worth of corporate research and development-always at the company's request, and generally with astonishing results. From his antics as a "temp" hire gaining access within two days, to his more systematic attacks using all known vulnerabilities including factory-shipped system administrator passwords that were never changed, he has exposed in a very practical way the "naked emperor" status of corporate America.
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