by Michael Scott
There are hidden hacker groups that are paid money to hack your computer and steal all your personal data. Anyone can be attacked by these stealth hackers. The high profile case of Mr. Haephrati shined light on this dark underworld.
Michael Haephrati, a computer programmer, originally created the Trojan to spy and harass his former in-laws. It was his method of revenge. His wife, Ruth Brier-Haephrati saw the business opportunity in selling this capability to other people and firms.
The Trojan software evolved into a business application designed to steal the intellectual property of any individual or company. This data was then given to a “subscriber” for a fee. The data sold ranged from correspondence to economic data.
Here is how they did it.
Between May 2003 and May 2005 a psychological hook was delivered to a specific individual. The targeted individual received an email from an address that looked like a known associate. The hook delivered by email was of a lucrative business opportunity. When the target responded to the email their computer received a Trojan from info@targetdata.biz. If the target did not respond to the email, the target would later receive a CD in the mail that contained the psychological hook again with the Trojan hidden in the programming code.
The Trojan allowed Haephrati to remotely control the computer of the target. This Trojan included a key-logger and a store and forward capability. It had the capability of watching what someone was doing on their computer “live” or in real time. It would send files from the target computer to FTP servers located in Israel, the U.S., and other locales. Haephrati had dozens of servers located around the globe.
According to police records, the data stolen included secret marketing plans, data on new products in the making, and even confidential employee data. Police estimate that some 13 gigs of data was stolen from people before they were able to shut it down.
Subscribers of Haephratis used the service to gain economic advantage of their competition.
It appears Haephrati subscribers were charged a one-time fee of $4,000 to create a customized Trojan and to infect a victim’s computer. A Haephrati subscriber was then charged about $1,000 a month to maintain Haephrati’s infrastructure used to store and then forward the victim’s secret and confidential data each month.
The cost to victims of Haephrati’s were huge. They lost their best marketing plans, new secret products in the pipe-line they were working on, and even lost the trust of their employees’ because of stolen employees’ personal data. All of this theft was facilitated by what are known as underground servers. The following price list was found on underground servers in 2007.
U.S.-based credit card with card verification value $1 – $6 UK-based credit card with card verification value $2 – $12 An identity (including U.S. bank account, credit card, date of birth, and government-issued identification number) $14 – $18 List of 29,000 e-mails $5 Online banking account with a $9,900 balance $300 Yahoo Mail cookie exploit”advertised to facilitate full access when successful $3 Valid Yahoo and Hotmail e-mail cookies $3 Compromised computers $6 – $20 Phishing Web site hosting”per site $3 – $5 Verified PayPal account with balance (balance varies) $10 – $50 Unverified PayPal account with balance (balance varies) $12 Skype accounts $12 World of Warcraft accounts”one month duration $10
Haephrati may have never been caught if it wasn’t for his own stupidity. He continued to harass his former in-laws by taking his former father-in-law’s private work and posting it publicly on the Internet to defame his person and character. His former father-in-law went to the police in November of 2004.
The police have their own anti-hacker tools and used secret computer forensic technology tools to trace the Trojan back to Haephrati’s business.
In 2005, Haephrati and his wife were extradited from the UK to Israel and pled guilty to the charges of economic and industrial espionage.
Some type of secret plea agreement was reached and the Haephrati’s were set free. The rumor on the street is that Haephrati now sub-contracts his Trojan and espionage service to law enforcement agencies only.
About the Author:
Written by Michael Scott. To read and learn more about how to be your own private detective visit
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