A US man has pleaded guilty to leasing out networks of compromised computers to criminals so they can carry out denial of service and spam attacks.
Twenty-year old Californian Jeanson James Ancheta faces up to six years in prison for felony charges that include making more than $61,000 from renting the illegal networks and infecting US military computers.
The Associated Press reports that Ancheta, who will be sentenced before a US District Court on 1 May, stands to lose his BMW and more than $58,000.
Reports suggest this could be the first case to take aim at people who profit from ‘botnets’ – networks of virus-infected computers used by hackers to launch attacks.
Last year Ancheta was charged with 17 counts of conspiracy fraud and a 14-month hacking spree.
James Rendell, senior technology specialist at Internet Security Systems, said: “Those who actively target businesses and computer users with malicious activities will not get away with it.
Bahamas B2B Editor’s Note: That also applies to the Nassau businessman who has paid hackers to attack websites in the US
“Not only is it reassuring to see the US government prosecuting this 20-year-old where he actively targeted thousands of computer systems and infected them with malicious software for his own financial gain but it also shows the seriousness of this crime spree.”
By Dan Ilett
This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/
