Israel bugged Syrian first lady’s e-mails (used “Trojan horse” spy software)

June 05, 2005 | Uzi Mahnaimi

[nickcarraway]

THE personal computer of Syria’s British-born first lady was bugged by Israeli military intelligence to build up a profile of her husband, President Bashar al-Assad, it emerged last week.

The Israelis used “Trojan horse” spy software to record her messages, including e-mail exchanges with her husband, and forward them to a server computer.

Intelligence sources quoted in an Israeli newspaper admitted to the operation after police arrested 22 suspects in Israel’s biggest industrial espionage scandal last week.

The so-called Trojan Horse affair involved leading defence contractors stealing secrets from rivals by sending spy software to their computers disguised as a package of confidential documents. The programme recorded every keystroke and collected business documents and e-mails, which it then sent to a server computer registered in London.

Intelligence sources claimed the Syrian leader and his wife had proved ideal targets. Assad is said to be addicted to computer games.

Asma, his wife, is a computer science graduate from King’s College London, and is known to spend long hours corresponding online with her friends and family.

The sources claimed Assad was aware that Israeli intelligence experts had gained access to all his wife’s e-mails and documents and had complained about it to “some European leaders”.

Another military intelligence expert said: “The wives of leaders are soft targets.”

Most leaders, including Assad, would have well- protected computers, he said, but those belonging to their spouses were less secure. “Sometimes they do not even have a basic firewall.”

Syria’s first lady, the former Asma al-Akhras, now 29, graduated in 1996 and worked as an economist for Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan. She married Assad, who trained as an eye surgeon in London, in December 2000.

The intelligence official said Asma’s personal correspondence was of little value but the bugging provided an ideal method of monitoring the thoughts of the president.

“Israel is, of course, interested in the husband, not the wife,” he said. “Assad, even after five years in power, is an enigma.”

[adam_az]

Paging the InfoSec pinglist...
Let me know if you want to be 1 or 0. (That's ON or OFF, for those who are not binary-compliant)

[Wiz]

Let me tell you a horrifying story. I was once affected by a devastating spy ware, but was able to detect some of the components with the ability to delete them. However, every time I deleted the detected Spyware files, it kept regenerating. I updated my definitions but it did not do any good. I've switched from AdAwre to SpyBot and I was unable to stop it from regenerating. I have researched about the components and concluded that a special tool was needed to delete the file that was regenerating the spy ware components. After several dies, I finally was able to delete the total spy ware. What was devastating about this spy ware was that one of the components prevented from being deleted for it to be in use by the system. As a lesson, Anti-SpyWare does not always guarantee to detect and delete the entire spy ware components.

[Wiz]

After several dies

After several days

[nickcarraway]

True. One thing I sometimes do, is run the adaware without the connection to the internet, when it keeps regenerating.

[thombo]

Either Assads wife isn't very computer savy or she was aware of the "trojan horse" and using the opp to deceive Israeli intelligence?

[stradivarius]

Why did you omit to name the source and link for this article: Al Jazeera? Please post a link to news sources for articles:

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=8519

Al Jazeera is not a reliable news source. The prelude to the article claimed their source was the "Sunday Times". Which "Sunday Times"... the New York Times? The London Times? I've never heard of any major newspaper called merely "The Sunday Times".

The ambiguity and vagueness of Al Jazeera's stated source is another indication that this story is bogus, a contrived fishing expedition by Arabs to get Israel to issue an official statement about it's intelligence operations.

[adam_az]

She sure is pretty for being such an evil b*tch, married to a murderous gangster.

What is her background? How the heck do you end up like that?

[hosepipe]

[ They don't have Ad Aware in Syria? ]

If they were Aware of most anything Syria wouldn't be Syria..

[hosepipe]

Damn their kids will look like giraffs,,

[nickcarraway]

There was a link when I posted this, but it was taken out for some reason. I believe it was the Sunday Times of London that I saw it in.

[stradivarius]

Thanks... the Al Jazeera article was the only one that popped up when I searched Google News.

The Sunday Times of London link is here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-1641307,00.html

They have more credibility than Al Jazeera, but they're also strangely vague about their source:

"Intelligence sources quoted in an Israeli newspaper admitted to the operation after police arrested 22 suspects in Israel’s biggest industrial espionage scandal last week.

So, they're not actually reporting on the event itself, they're reporting on a news article that was published in an unnamed "Israeli newspaper" that reports a quote by unnamed "intelligence sources".

Why do they fail to name the newspaper in which the original article was published? That information is extremely relevant -- it's the basis for their entire article. Maybe it wasn't a credible newspaper, but an Israeli variation of "The Enquirer"?

This is hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay. Each successive anonymous source distorts by another magnitude.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[nickcarraway]

I don't know if it's true or not, but if I have no problem if Israel did do it.

[SevenofNine]

Damn Mrs Assad don't have AOL spyware LOL!

[The_Media_never_lie]

Yes, time and time again, we are really dumb. It almost makes me wonder which side the press is on. I know in my heart the answer to this question.

[sheik yerbouty]

More like pencil necked geeks!

[stradivarius]

I'm not a fan of Syrian National Socialists. I'm just sick of the drumbeat of Socialist newsmedia disinformation and outright propaganda.

The Sunday Times of London article featured exceptionally poor reporting by failing or deliberately omitting to name the alleged Israeli newspaper upon which their entire article was based.