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Married Couple Rides Trojan Horse
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-03-07
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Authorities in London extradited and Israeli couple from Tel Aviv and charged them with developing, marketing and distributing a trojan horse for use in corporate espionage. They sold the spyware to various investigators for use in spying on clients' rivals.
According to reports, Michael Haephrati, 44 and Ruth Brier-Haephrati, 28, were extradited in January and prosecutors say they've confessed to most of the crimes involved. Apparently, they both worked for the Target-Eya company. Haephrati developed the trojan and his wife peddled it out to various investigators who bought it and installed it on various companies.
"This case sends out a strong message around the world that the menace of spyware is growing, and that companies need to realise that it's not just home users who are at risk. Organized criminals are hell bent on stealing information and making a profit at the expense of big business," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Every company needs multi-layered security in place to best defend against the growing threat of spyware."
The wife received the brunt of the charges including aggravate fraud, unlawful computer access, virus insertion, installing tapping equipment, invasion of privacy, managing and unlawful database and conspiracy to commit a crime. Michael Haephrati received lighter charges including assisting his wife in said activities.
According to the indictments, the Trojan was used by detectives to spy on the Rani Rahav PR agency and the HOT cable television group as well as Champion Motors, an importer for Audi and Volkswagen.
Tag: Haephrati
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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