Million Dollar Bank Account Hackers Convicted
Million Dollar Bank Account Hackers Convicted
April 2008 A New Zealand teenager accused of leading an international ring of computer hackers which skimmed millions of dollars from bank accounts was today convicted of illegal computer hacking. Owen Thor Walker, 18, pleaded guilty yesterday to six charges related to using computers for illegal purposes. Police allege that he led a group of hackers who took control of 1.3m computers around the world without their owners' knowledge. Hackers routinely send out viruses, worms and malicious Trojan horse programs which allow them to take control of a victim's machine. Linked through the internet to form a "bot-net" network, the infiltrated computers are used to access personal bank accounts, steal credit card details or bombard users with spam. Police alleged that Walker wrote software that evaded normal computer anti-spyware systems, and then sold his skills to criminals around the world. He was remanded on bail until May 28 for pre-sentence and reparation reports. Although several of the charges he was convicted of carry maximum terms of five years' imprisonment, Judge Arthur Tompkins said he was not considering prison. Walker was arrested last December as part of Operation Bot Roast II, a worldwide crackdown led by the FBI. Eight others had previously been charged or convicted or had pleaded guilty. The 18-year old, who was underage when the offences were committed, cooperated with police in the North Island city of Hamilton, revealing details of the crime. Criminals also use bot-nets to send out billions of spam emails or swamp their victim with unwanted internet traffic. Shielding their identities behind infected machines, hackers often try to blackmail large web businesses, banks and other groups reliant on internet connections, by threatening to overwhelm them with millions of simultaneous attacks. ..Martin Hodgson and agencies
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