NZ Teen Arrested as 'Spybot Mastermind'

Josh Fink writes "The Guardian has an interesting piece on 'Akill', a teenager from New Zealand who was the ringleader of a hacking ring. The economic impact of the ring may have totaled £9.7m. 'The teenager was the "head of an international spybot ring that has infiltrated computers around the world with their malicious software', Martin Kleintjes told New Zealand national radio ... The FBI estimates that more than 1m computers have been infected, and puts the combined economic losses at more than $20m (£9.7m).' Eight people have been charged, pleaded guilty or have been convicted since June. The FBI really has been putting a crackdown on botnets / spyware recently."

Comments

Too bad his nick wasn't $h3ph32d

[SlipperHat]

Herding a botnet must be sort of like herding sheep.

translation ..

[rs232]

"NZ Teen Arrested as 'Spybot Mastermind'"

translation: Feds want to justify their huge budget ..

time for another terr'ist alert .. :)