June 2nd, 2005
Trojan Horse Incident:: Synopsis and Predictions.
This is such a convoluted story. I think I have it straight now.
An Israeli author, Amnon Jackont, noticed that some of his unpublished works were circulating on the Internet and called the police because he suspected his ex-step-son-in-law, Michael Haephrati was responsible. The police found spyware on Jackont’s PC that uploaded files, email, and keystroke logs to a server in London. That server (maybe others) contained files from a lot of Israeli companies that indicated they were infected with spyware as well. Police checked out computers in those companies and eventually started arresting private investigators accused of installing spyware within target organizations. That led to the arrests and questioning of executives at the firms that had hired the “Private Investigators�.
So, have I lost you already? Are your eyes glazed over? I have noticed that it is extremely hard to get interested in events on the other side of the world that effect people and companies you have never heard of. I am sure that in Tel Aviv this is the biggest news item of the week. Yet, as of this posting the Wall Street Journal and USA Today have yet to report it! Even the European based Financial Times only mentions it briefly on May 30th.
One of the tricks of the trade of a “futurist� or even an industry “analyst� is to look around the world for trends and incidents, then predict that they will occur elsewhere. This always works! George Gilder spends a lot of time looking at South Korea because high speed Internet access is universally deployed there. He thinks South Korea is a great place to study if you want to predict what amazing things will happen when broadband is more widely deployed in the US and Europe. And he is right. I was in Istanbul almost two years ago and could see that wide spread deployment of keystroke loggers in Internet cafes was a sign of things to come in the West.
My prediction then: These incidents in Israel are not unique to Israel. Industrial espionage is wide spread and easy to do with Trojan downloaders and keystroke monitors combined with artful social engineering.
Richard Stiennon is an industry consultant. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
