FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1998

ISRAELI CITIZEN ARRESTED IN ISRAEL FOR HACKING

UNITED STATES AND ISRAELI GOVERNMENT COMPUTERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Justice, in

conjunction with the FBI, the Air Force Office of Special
Investigation, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration
and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, announced today
that the Israeli National Police arrested Ehud Tenebaum, an
Israeli citizen, for illegally accessing computers belonging to
the Israeli and United States governments, as well as hundreds of
other commercial and educational systems in the United States and
elsewhere.

The arrest of Tenebaum culminates several weeks of

investigation into a series of computer intrusions into United
States military systems that occurred in February 1998. As part
of this investigation, the Department of Justice formally
requested legal assistance from the Israeli Ministry of Justice,
and U.S. law enforcement agents traveled to Israel to present
Israeli law enforcement officials with evidence of the magnitude
and the source of the intrusions into United States computers.

Attorney General Janet Reno said that the prompt arrest of

the Israeli hacker demonstrates the effectiveness of
international cooperation in cases involving transnational
criminal conduct. She added that the U.S. government's efforts
to investigate and prosecute computer crime are on the right
track:

"This arrest should send a message to would-be computer

hackers all over the world that the United States will treat
computer intrusions as serious crimes. We will work around the
world and in the depths of cyberspace to investigate and
prosecute those who attack computer networks," she said.

Although the intrusions into United States military

computers were treated as serious incidents, no classified
information was ever compromised, and there is no indication that
the attacks were part of a organized military or state-sponsored
campaign against the United States.

Federal law enforcement officials said that the Israeli

government was very cooperative and acted quite promptly when
presented with evidence of Tenebaum's activities. As part of
this evidence, U.S. investigators also presented the Israelis
with evidence of crimes against Israeli computer systems.

Scott Charney, Chief of the Justice Department's Computer

Crime and Intellectual Property Section, which helped coordinate
the investigation, said that the investigation was substantially
advanced by the close cooperation of various law enforcement
agencies, as well as by the efforts of prosecutors in several
United States Attorneys' offices who provided substantial
assistance throughout the investigation.

As part of the investigation, agents of the FBI also

searched the homes of two California teenagers who are also
believed to be responsible for some of the intrusions into
government and commercial computer systems.

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