The CBL Source - Editorial

To many people, James Bond is a hero. After all, he is one of the most famous spies in history, albeit fictional. When you see his films, you cannot help but think how brave and ingenious he is. You have to admire his ability to enter any environment and turn it into luxury surroundings.

Then, of course, there's girls, guns and explosions. He has the legendary license to kill - probably issued through the World Human Rights Court - he frequently gets into gunfights in some of the most popular tourist sites in the world and frequently leaves dramatic explosions in his wake.

Along with all that, his enemies fear him as well. He is so feared, that they quickly recognize him and try to kill him. Of course, their assassination attempts fail, because he is just that great. You've got to love the guy.

So if this is what spies do, what's the problem? Well, he violates the number one rule of espionage: Never get caught. That's the key. A spy should never get caught. Real life spies hold this as their mantra. It doesn't matter what they do, as long as they can cover it up.

Think of a typical James Bond film. You can pretty much guarantee that he will walk into a bar in a foreign city and get recognised. This means that he cannot secretly exchange information with another agent. The fact that people want to shoot him on top of everything makes him useless as a secret agent. A British military officer exchanging gunfire in foreign cities will just create an international incident and draw attention to secret operations. Blowing up boats in the canals of Venice, could, you might think, create an international incident.

Concerning the reality of espionage, MI-6 reportedly decided that keeping a low key was so important that they recently implemented a rule that said no MI-6 operative could be over 5'11". They want to make sure that their operatives do not stand out in a crowd. It is that critical.

Dangerous Consequences
Think of the consequences of a spy getting caught. Firstly a mission is blown, but frankly, that's the least of a spy's worries. When an intelligence operative is caught, there is a whole sequence of events that can go wrong. If a mission is stopped in its tracks, that's obviously bad. But think about what happens if the adversary knows who was involved. They could attack the source you came from and kill your employer.

Killing someone is still not the worst thing that can happen. Imagine if a terrorist group wants to bring a nuclear weapon into the country. If they find out that you know where they will bring it in, they could just stop the delivery. They might discover how you found out and then deny you more information in the future.

They could learn the source of the leak then feed you false and damaging information in the future. A more deadly alternative could be that they booby trap the package and bring the nuclear fuel into the country somewhere else.

The best spies will not get caught. As opposed to being recognised by everyone, they won't be able to attract the attention of a waitress in an empty restaurant.

The Perfect Crime
Stop and think for a second: What is the perfect crime? The perfect crime is one that the victim never knows occurred. They don't know that there has been a loss, so they don't know there is anything to investigate. Computer crimes fit perfectly into this category. Millions of credit cards are stolen every year and the victims don't even realise it unless they check their credit card statements every month. Many e-commerce sites leave themselves vulnerable to the most inept computer hackers, allowing all the credit card numbers on their system to be stolen.

When I researched my new book, Spies Among Us, I interviewed real computer criminals to see how they committed their crimes. Universally, they told me that anyone with the same criminal intent could have committed the same crimes. It was not a matter of them being expert hackers, but the victims being inept at protecting their own systems.

What the hackers did with the credit cards depends on what their intent was. Some hackers stole the credit cards then extorted the sites they broke into to keep the thefts a secret. Some hackers used the credit card numbers to buy things over the Internet and then resell the goods. If extortion demands were not met, the hackers would contact the credit card owners and let them know about the crimes. Sometimes even when the hackers were given everything they asked for, they would still sell the credit card numbers to other criminals or just post them to hacker sites on the Internet.

What's this got to do with you?
So what does James Bond's ineptitude have to do with you? Well, the reality is that if there is a real person targeting you, they are not going to be nice enough to create a big explosion to let you know they are coming. They will commit their crimes, steal your credit card numbers and you won't know about it until long after the crime has occurred. This means that you should strongly consider which e-merchants you deal with. The more established ones tend to have better security programs.

Additionally, you have to consider how you protect your home computer. While many of the better criminal hackers focus on e-merchant sites, many criminals exploit home computer users. Broadband connections generally mean that the subscriber keeps their computer on and connected to the Internet at all times. This means that they are targets at all times. A home computer needs anti-virus and personal firewall software both installed and updated automatically. The automatic update features for the operating system and applications need to be permanently on, or the computer becomes vulnerable to any hacker with the most basic skills.

The computer is likely to not only be compromised, but co-opted in performing other crimes online.

You, as the victim, are likely to be completely naïve to the fact that a crime has occurred. So keep your Golden eyes peeled!

For more security insights, try: Spies Among Us by Ira Winkler ISBN: 0764584685