[October 23, 2007] Tier-3: Austrian Secret Service given thumbs up to Trojan-bug PCs Tweet (M2 PressWIRE Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) RDATE:23102007 London, UK -- Austria has become one of the first countries in the world to officially sanction the use of Trojan Horse malware to monitor the computers of suspected terrorists and criminals. The move, announced late last week by Gunther Plater, the Austrian Interior Minister, will come as something of a shock to privacy watchers, said Geoff Sweeney, CTOof Tier-3, the behavioural software IT security firm. "This is because Austria, a politically neutral country, has always been right up there alongside Switzerlandin terms of personal and company privacy," he said. "Minister Plater has said that the Trojan malware will only be used against suspected terrorists and serious criminals, and will require a court order. That isn't much protection, and I am extremely concerned about this software falling into the wrong hands," he added. "I'm sure the Austrian Secret Service will develop some pretty ingenious software to infect users' PCs, but there is a real danger that the package could leak into the hacker community. That scenario would create a serious free-for-all on the industrial espionage and identity theft fronts as legitimate trojans are redirected to create an even more hostile environment for organisatons to defend against increasing the need to use behavioural protection software and anomaly detection to defend themselves against a prevalence of Trojans." Sweeney continued. For more on the Austrian Secret Service's planned use of Trojans: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97595 For more on Tier-3: http://www.tier-3.com ABOUT TIER-3 Tier-3, with headquarters in Sydney, is the inventor of Behavioural Anomaly Detection (BAD) technology which is the cornerstone of the HUNTSMAN Threat Management System. HUNTSMAN enables enterprises to scale security management while, at the same time, improving its effectiveness by offering for the first time, insight into enterprise ICT infrastructure and real-time risk-based threat management. Tier-3s significant customer base includes government, financial institutions, major corporations, and organisations in the critical infrastructure and intelligence areas around the world. CONTACT: Neil Stinchcombe, Eskenzi PR Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)20 7183 2833 e-mail: [email protected] TIER-3 WWW: http://www.tier-3.com ((M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to [email protected])). Copyright 2007 M2 Communications Ltd. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]