27 Mar 2006
Court hands hefty fine and jail sentence to Israeli spyware couple, reports Sophos
|
| The Haephratis have been sentenced to jail. |
Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centres, have applauded
an Israeli court's decision to fine Ruth and Michael Haephrati for
developing and selling a spyware Trojan horse. Having previously
entered into a plea bargain
to be sentenced to four and two years in jail respectively, the
married couple have also been fined two million shekels in
compensation (approximately 244,000 pounds sterling) for their
unlawful actions.
The Trojan horse, which helped private investigators spy on
their clients' business competitors, was said to have been
originally created by Michael Haephrati as a practical joke, before
his wife decided to market the malicious program. Since the couple
were arrested, several private investigators have also been
indicted.
"It's encouraging to see that governments and law enforcement
agencies all over the world are cracking down on the perpetrators
of cyber crime," said Carole Theriault, senior
security consultant at Sophos. "Industrial espionage through
illegal software use is on the rise, and the only way to stamp it
out is by ensuring that the guilty parties don't get off lightly.
By dishing out both a jail sentence and a hefty fine, the Israeli
court has sounded a stern warning that will hopefully deter others
from committing such misdemeanours."
Sophos recommends that all computer users should ensure that
they are running an automatically updated anti-virus product, security patches and firewall
software.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.