18 year old Kiwi convicted for cyber-crimes
An 18 year old boy by the name of Owen Thor Walker who was allegedly the ringleader of a cyber-crime gang has been charged.
Walker admitted to six charges including accessing a computer for dishonest purposes, interfering with computer systems, possession of software for committing crime and accessing computer systems without authorisation.
Police in New Zealand arrested in the boy in November whom they believed to be a ringleader in an international cyber-crime gang.
The group is believed to have brought down the server at the University of Pennsylvania and infiltrated more than a million computers.
Police estimate the gang have skimmed $25m in from victims bank accounts by hijacking computers all over the world and networking them to form a botnet. Walker is believed to have written programs unlike any other, capable of evading normal anti-virus software.
Police suspected he then sold it to other hackers. Detectives in NZ, who are working with Dutch detectives and the FBI say the boy (screen name AKILL) is very bright and very skilled in what he was doing.
Walker will receive his sentence in May and could be in for up to 10 years in the slammer.
- Business,
- Networking,
- New ,
- Zealand ,
- Cyber-crime
- Outrage over Creative's decision to remove user-modded Vista driver post
- Adobe joins Linux Foundation
- DisplayLink support arrives at Apple
- Scientists develop method to create 3D images of magnetic fields
- Gates may be deposed in case of Xbox house fire
- Philippine company to bring higher-end OLPC-style laptop
- PS3 and Xbox 360 neck and neck after successful Easter
- Linux is last man standing in Vista/Linux/Mac hacking contest
- 10 things you didn't know about . . . Andy Paul
- Why is Microsoft dropping the Xbox 360 price so fast?
- Samsung shows off it's wares at CTIA 2008
- Mind Games vs. Video Games
- Pranking the Tom's Editors and famous pranks from previous April 1sts
- Google Docs go offline
- Hacked Vista notebook pulled from eBay auction
- Toshiba releases it's own line of stylish notebooks to join the likes of Acer and Apple in the 'stunning' laptop category
- Virgle: A Google/Virgin April Fool
- Intel's new catchphrase - 'Carry Small, Live Large'
i love the sentencing for this stuff..... if i walked into a bank and robbed it of $25m im sure i would go to prison for longer than 10 year... so why does he only get 10 year for commiting the same crime, just he did it on a PC?
@ Flakes
Well I imagine if you went into a bank to rob it you'd have to have guns and threaten people etc. and maybe have to kill someone. With what he done no one could get physically hurt so thats why the sentence would be less.