PC Hacker Convicted with Infiltrating Ex-army Spy’s Computer

According to Naked Security, which published its news on 21st February 2012, Philip Campbell Smith, a security consultant allegedly employed a Trojan virus for infiltrating a PC of Ian Hurst who had formerly been in the British Army in the post of intelligence officer and assigned the role of dealing with IRA informers of the Northern Ireland.

The PC attack Smith waged allegedly was executed during July 2006 when he dispatched an e-mail, infested with a Trojan, to Hurst so the malware would record the latter's messages followed with transmitting those same messages to Smith.

It's asserted that Smith, an erstwhile employee at the Force Research Unit of British Army, accepted a contract from Southern Investigations a company that asked him to monitor Hurst's PC operations towards helping the newspaper, 'News of the World' find out IRA informants' whereabouts.

Understandably, Jonathan Rees a private detective of Southern Investigators was the person who asked Smith for doing the job. Rees was engaged in News of the World's activities when the newspaper's executive Alex Marunchak requested for the hack. But Marunchak dismisses making any such request. Expectedly, the PC hack would have helped the newspaper reach 2 informants that had information regarding the IRA. The Independent published this on February 21, 2012.

Subsequently, during an enquiry by Leveson, Hurst told that Smith admitted to him in a covert recording that over a time span of 3 months, he, by using the Trojan that had backdoor capabilities, accessed the Force Research Unit's e-mails, social media, hard drive and many more. Actually, Smith's admission wasn't precisely that, however, the Trojan, which Southern Investigations managed to detect, would've let the web-camera, just like any web-cam, so he must have really watched Hurst or his children beside the computer with the relevant material.

Nevertheless, in 2009, authorities arrested Smith and confiscated his computers; however, Hurst became aware of the hacking attack against his PC only in October 2011.

Recently on 20th February 2012, it was published in The Guardian that Smith is undergoing an inquiry by "Operation Kalmyk," a subsidiary of "Operation Tuleta" a Metropolitan Police investigation into computer-hacking.

Related article: PC-Virus of 2005 Threatening Japanese Bank Accountholders, Warns Symantec

» SPAMfighter News - 2/25/2012