Israeli Executives Arrested for Industrial Espionage Using a Computer Virus

On suspicion of spying on their competition using computer viruses, senior executives of several Israeli firms including YES satellite TV, Pelephone Communications and Cellcom have been arrested, together with 11 private detectives who allegedly infiltrated the computer systems. The Trojan Horse viruses allowed remote control of competitors' computers and the theft of many documents of significant commercial value, later sold to third parties. The viruses were disseminated by e-mail as though they were part of legitimate proposals from reputable companies. Because the viruses were customized for each victim, anti-virus filtering was ineffective. The virus was detected when an author discovered his unpublished manuscripts on the Internet and complained to the Tel Aviv fraud department. None of the victimized companies had the slightest inkling that security had been compromised. It seems likely that this type of industrial espionage is both common and underreported. For two news accounts in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, visit: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/581790.html http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/581718.html For a commentary in EWeek, see: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1822121,00.asp Summary by: Nyall Engfield