By Jo Best, 9 September 2004 13:00
NEWS Sven Jaschan, the 18-year-old said to be behind two of the internet's most widespread viruses - Sasser and Netsky - is to be charged by the German police.
The teen, arrested earlier this year and thought to have been fingered to the police by one of his schoolmates in a return for a Microsoft bounty, is now facing charges of computer sabotage, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail in Germany, as well as data manipulation and disruption of public systems.
Despite recent fears that virus writers and spammers were teaming up for commercial gain, it seems Jaschan released Sasser to gain notoriety for his programming skills.
More than 140 plaintiffs claiming damages of over $150,000 will be confronting Jaschan over his virus writing exploits. However, it's thought the real figures could be a lot higher as the majority of victims don't tell the police. Larger businesses with a reputation to protect are often unwilling to admit they've been infected, but one estimate from Computer Economics put the figure as high as $500m.
Jaschan's malware made up 70 per cent of all infections in the first half of this year, according to antivirus firm Sophos. Written in the teenager's bedroom in a town in Saxony, Sasser caught out several big names, including British Airways, Goldman Sachs UK and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
A date has yet to be set for Jaschan's trial.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Only five years. It should be forty five years, or more.
2. anonymous
Funny how if someone broke into and vandalised hundreds or thousands of companies - they'd probably lock 'em up and throw away the key - but if it involves these strange computer thingy's the attitude of our informed ancient judges seems to be more 'tut tut - boys will be boys - slap his hand and send him home. Small businesses - even those which have invested in anti-virus software can literally be put out of business by these anal retentives. There needs to be some real example sentences handed out when one of them is caught banged to rights - or maybe they have to pay back the damages they've caused - for life!
3. anonymous
It would be better to cut his fingers off - this would surely stop him in future and discourage others. The amount of time i spend each day making sure we are protected is horrendous.
4. anonymous
Funny how if someone broke into and vandalised hundreds or thousands of companies - they'd probably lock 'em up and throw away the key - but if it involves these strange computer thingy's the attitude of our informed ancient judges seems to be more 'tut tut - boys will be boys - slap his hand and send him home. Small businesses - even those which have invested in anti-virus software can literally be put out of business by these anal retentives. There needs to be some real example sentences handed out when one of them is caught banged to rights - or maybe they have to pay back the damages they've caused - for life!
5. Carl Jones
If only this news would get the same sensational high profile as the original outbreak gets.
Let's see it on the main channels' evening news and newspaper front pages so that hackers and the like are shamed and deterred.
They obviously think they can get away with it!
6. JJ
let him work and pay for the damages he caused.