Israel's Major Industrial Espionage: 18 Arrested For Trojan Scheme

Eighteen people have been arrested in one of Israel's largest industrial espionage schemes, police said Sunday, charging that business executives and private investigators used sophisticated software to infiltrate competitors' computers. The investigation implicated a car importer, two cell phone providers, and the nation's main satellite television company. Police said they were still sifting through documents and computer files to figure out the extent of the damage, but maintained that victims lost competitive bids and thousands of customers because of the spying.

According to police, a computer programmer developed software known as a Trojan horse on behalf of three of the country's largest private investigation firms. The private investigators then sneaked the program into the computers of their clients' major competitors via seemingly benign e-mail attachments.

The program gave the private investigators complete access--over the Internet--to their victims' computers, police said.

Police accused a car company that imports Volvos of spying on another company that imports Volkswagens. Two cell phone companies, Cellcom and Pele-phone, were accused of spying on a third company, police said. Another victim was the main TV cable company, called HOT.

Those arrested included a top executive from the YES satellite television company, security officials who worked for Pele-Phone and Cellcom, and several private investigators.

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