http://www.debka-net-weekly.com/
Two Suspected Israeli Computer Hackers Face Extradition from London 29 May: A pair of Israeli hackers was remanded in custody at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London Thursday, May 26. Michael Haephrati, 41, and Ruth Brier-Haephrati, 28, were arrested by Scotland Yard on an Israeli extradition warrant and held respectively in Brixton and Holloway prisons until a further hearing on June 3. The charge on the warrant is "unauthorized modification of the contents of a computer." In professional intelligence literature, this locution usually refers to industrial espionage by the illegal invasion of computers. The kind of software used is not new; it derives from the PROMIS program developed in the United States in the 1980s to help the US Justice Department and the FBI crack financial crime cases. The targets of PROMIS and its offspring never know they are raided, their firewalls penetrated and their passwords cracked. Over the years, many intelligence agencies, including Israel's, upgraded the earlier PROMIS, and developed better protective software against these silent invaders. Some of their experts ended up on the world market, notably in the US, India, Russia, and probably Israel too. They can be found selling their expertise to security and financial companies - or even to organized crime. The Scotsman reports that before he was arrested on the Israeli extradition warrant, Michael Haephrati, who also has German nationality, was questioned by detectives from the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit on a "separate matter." He was released by the unit on police bail Wednesday, May 25, pending further inquiries into allegations of "offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. British legal experts told DEBKAfile that Haephrati is suspected of computer offenses in Britain as well as Israel. The British can be expected to insist on precedence for their inquiry and legal proceedings before handing him over to Israel. This could hold up the Israeli process for many months. How Will the Hi-Tech Espionage Inquiry Affect the Bezeq Sale? 30 May: In the second shockwave from the discovery of the large-scale computerized espionage ring targeting Israel and foreign companies, the big question is this: how will it affect the recent sale to private purchasers of Bezeq, the Israel Communications Corporation, for a reported $900? DEBKAfile's business sources report the sale was completed after the police fraud squad's inquiry into the case was well underway. Bezeq's spokesmen are acting as though the company was itself a victim of the Trojan Horse virus used to upload competitors' computers. However, its two subsidiaries which are included in the sale - mobile phone operator Pele-Phone and TV satellite YES - are leading subjects of investigation. They are also likely to face multimillion suits by the victimized companies, some of the biggest in Israel, including the Hong Kong-based Partner Ltd., Israel's second largest mobile phone company, and HOT cable TV. The new owners of Bezeq, Haim Saban of Los Angeles and Ronald Cohen from London, have so far made no comment on the grave charges brought against their new acquisitions. Israel's finance ministry and central bank are bracing for a demand to reopen the sale or at least reduce the price and its terms. They must also expect some hard questions about why they allowed the signing of the transaction to go through when a criminal investigation against Bezeq or its subsidiaries had been going on for months. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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