Israeli Spear-Phishing Problems

CNET reports that some of Israel's most prestigious corporations are now under investigation for possibly stealing information from companies in such assorted fields as military contracting, telephony, cable television, finance, automobile and cigarette importing, journalism and high technology.

While the Israeli victims were diverse, they shared one thing in common: the Trojan horses that penetrated their computers came packaged inside a compact disc or an e-mail message that appeared to be from an institution or a person that the victims thought they knew very well. Once the program was installed, it whirred along surreptitiously, logging keystrokes or collecting sensitive documents and passwords before transmitting the information elsewhere.