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Are Fake Recruiters Stealing Your Secrets?
McMurray, PA
Monday, February 05, 2007
SECURITY ISSUE:
Employees interviewing with outside firms and recruiters are enticed and pressured into disclosing sensitive, confidential and in some cases classified information. Sometimes, disclosure of even high level information about projects become the basis of derivative intelligence.
TACTIC:
An organization identifies a technical resource that is on a project or may have information about a project, product or program of interest. The organization, cloaked in anonymity through the use of a front person (recruiter) or organization posing as a recruiting firm establishes contact with the targeted source for information. "I have the perfect job for you and the salary is over $250,000 with great benefits. It seems to fit with the work you are currently doing" This was the line used by one such recruiter on a Science and Technology Advisor to a major defense R&D center.
Espionage is the act of obtaining non-public or secret information from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. Currently, corporate espionage alone is estimated at costing companies over $1 trillion annually. This war on information assets now has a new tool and one that is hard to detect and guard against. The new tool is recruiting. Using fake job postings and targeting specific individuals for fake job interviews have become a tool for spying. The target is wooed by the position, salary, benefits or other enticements and in the interviewing process becomes comfortable and become less guarded about the details of the work they are doing. Answering seemingly harmless questions about strategies, plans, programs, practices, people or even technologies can lead to derivative intelligence. Derivative Intelligence (DI) is synthesized out of the lower level data, facts, timelines and events that may be disclosed during a job interview or on a professionals resume. Defense Security Services did not list this method in their Technology Collection Trends 2005 report. The information collected using this technique can destroy competitive advantage for a corporation or compromise national security by unintentionally disclosing classified programs, projects or systems. One recruiting professional who asked not to be identified said this tactic has been and still is used in Silicon Valley where the competitive environment is extremely intense among technology companies. An internet search turned up multiple resumes of individuals with Top Secret/SCI clearance that listed their home addresses and past and current projects for major defense contractors. One resume listed projects at Ft. Meade, home of the National Security Agency. While the information contained on the resume may or may not provide any useful intelligence, it at least creates a security risk for the individuals who provided their home address. It is time to train HR staff, Security Officers and employees on this threat. For more information contact Spy-Ops about our security training programs covering this and many more areas.
ACTION: Human Resource and Security Departments should immediately inform employees to be on the lookout for these activities and report any aggressive information gathering attempts by recruiters.
QUOTE: Currently, highly skilled workers with active security clearances are a very hot commodity and in great demand. As such "Employers and HR professionals must educate their employees about these practices and create a work environment that is so pleasing, employees will not even think of interviewing elsewhere"
Cheryl Veirheilig
HR Professional
STATISTIC:
Clearancejobs.com boasts 3,000 job postings per month and 85,000 resumes for cleared job seekers.
Clearedjobs.net posts just under 60,000 openings annually.
Employees interviewing with outside firms and recruiters are enticed and pressured into disclosing sensitive, confidential and in some cases classified information. Sometimes, disclosure of even high level information about projects become the basis of derivative intelligence.
TACTIC:
An organization identifies a technical resource that is on a project or may have information about a project, product or program of interest. The organization, cloaked in anonymity through the use of a front person (recruiter) or organization posing as a recruiting firm establishes contact with the targeted source for information. "I have the perfect job for you and the salary is over $250,000 with great benefits. It seems to fit with the work you are currently doing" This was the line used by one such recruiter on a Science and Technology Advisor to a major defense R&D center.
Espionage is the act of obtaining non-public or secret information from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. Currently, corporate espionage alone is estimated at costing companies over $1 trillion annually. This war on information assets now has a new tool and one that is hard to detect and guard against. The new tool is recruiting. Using fake job postings and targeting specific individuals for fake job interviews have become a tool for spying. The target is wooed by the position, salary, benefits or other enticements and in the interviewing process becomes comfortable and become less guarded about the details of the work they are doing. Answering seemingly harmless questions about strategies, plans, programs, practices, people or even technologies can lead to derivative intelligence. Derivative Intelligence (DI) is synthesized out of the lower level data, facts, timelines and events that may be disclosed during a job interview or on a professionals resume. Defense Security Services did not list this method in their Technology Collection Trends 2005 report. The information collected using this technique can destroy competitive advantage for a corporation or compromise national security by unintentionally disclosing classified programs, projects or systems. One recruiting professional who asked not to be identified said this tactic has been and still is used in Silicon Valley where the competitive environment is extremely intense among technology companies. An internet search turned up multiple resumes of individuals with Top Secret/SCI clearance that listed their home addresses and past and current projects for major defense contractors. One resume listed projects at Ft. Meade, home of the National Security Agency. While the information contained on the resume may or may not provide any useful intelligence, it at least creates a security risk for the individuals who provided their home address. It is time to train HR staff, Security Officers and employees on this threat. For more information contact Spy-Ops about our security training programs covering this and many more areas.
ACTION: Human Resource and Security Departments should immediately inform employees to be on the lookout for these activities and report any aggressive information gathering attempts by recruiters.
QUOTE: Currently, highly skilled workers with active security clearances are a very hot commodity and in great demand. As such "Employers and HR professionals must educate their employees about these practices and create a work environment that is so pleasing, employees will not even think of interviewing elsewhere"
Cheryl Veirheilig
HR Professional
STATISTIC:
Clearancejobs.com boasts 3,000 job postings per month and 85,000 resumes for cleared job seekers.
Clearedjobs.net posts just under 60,000 openings annually.
Kevin G. Coleman
Senior Fellow/Chief Strategist
Technolytics in conjunction with Spy-Ops
McMurray, PA
412-818-7656
412-291-1193
