Israeli spyware-for-hire PIs jailed
Watching the detectives
By John Leyden ? More by this author
Published Tuesday 29th April 2008 14:36 GMT
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A group of private eyes who applied spyware to industrial espionage have
been jailed in Israel,
in the latest twist to a long-running high-profile investigation.
Four members of the Israeli Modi'in Ezrahi private investigation firm were
sentenced on Monday
after they were found guilty of using Trojan malware to steal commercially
sensitive
information from their clients' competitors.
The Trojan, written and marketed by London-based couple Michael and Ruth
Haephrati, was
re****tedly used to spy on a variety of organisations including the HOT
cable television group
and a PR agency whose clients include Israel's second biggest mobile
operator, Partner
Communications.
Asaf Zlotovsky, a manager at the Modi'in Ezrahi detective firm, was jailed
for 19 months. Two
other employees, Haim Zissman and Ron Barhoum, were sent to prison for 18
and nine months
respectively. The firm's former chief exec, Yitzhak Rett, the victim of an
apparent accident
when he fell down a stairwell during a break in police questioning back in
2005, escaped a jail
sentence under a plea bargaining agreement. Rett was fined 250,000 Israeli
Shekels (£36,500)
and ordered to serve ten months' probation over his involvement in the
scam.
Three other defendants were heavily fined and their licences as private
investigators were
revoked by a Tel Aviv court, The Jerusalem Post re****ts.
Michael Haephrati, who honed his computer skills during three years'
military service in the
Israeli army, and his wife Ruth were fined and sentenced to jail by an
Israeli court for their
involvement in the case back in 2006. Michael was jailed for two years and
his wife for four
years after pleading guilty to the scam, and following their extradition
from the UK in January
2006.
Modi'in Ezrahi is the largest of three private investigation firms
implicated in the case. The
case against Modi'in Ezrahi is the first to reach its conclusion. It's
unclear whether or not
further prosecutions against the two other detective agencies, Krochmal
Special Investigations
and Pelosoff-Balali, are likely to follow.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said that social
engineering tactics
specific to individual victims were used to infect PCs. Infected CDs were
sent through the post
to prospective marks, he added.
Cluley notes that the case illustrates the im****tance of firms hiring
private investigators to
seek assurances that they will refrain from behaving unethically or
illegally.
"Most detective agencies would probably balk at the thought of breaking
into a company's
offices to spy on them, but maybe some feel it is more acceptable to do
the spying through
malware? A strong message needs to be sent that using spyware to gain
competitive advantage
over competitors is not only unacceptable, it's against the law," Cluley
told El Reg.
The identity of the spyware used in the case is unknown, but earlier
re****ts suggest the Trojan
was originally used to spy on Israeli thriller writer Amnon Jackont, the
husband of Michael
Haephrati's ex-partner, radio show hostess Varda Raziel-Jackont. Jackont's
discovery of a
Trojan on his PC led to a police investigation that eventually led back to
the Haephratis and a
much larger plot.
More background on the genesis of the case can be found in a New York
Times story here. There's
a full rundown of the runners and riders in a Globe story here. ®
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/spyware-for-hire/
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