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

Link to article about US student arrested

[DarthTeufel]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/11910042.html A Penn student who was arrested in connection with AKILL

Re:Important to point out...

[BiggerIsBetter]

I think it's important to point out that the kid 'Akill' was released without charge and that he didn't make any money out of the operation. Some sources are reporting that the group "raked in" $20 million, whereas that figure comes from estimates of "economic losses" so are probably inflated or meaningless depending on where the sources come from. Linkage