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New Zealand Rousts Teenaged Botherder
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-11-30
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The 18-year-old going by the alias 'Akill' received a visit from cops in New Zealand after the FBI pegged him as the ringleader of an international criminal group.
 | | New Zealand Rousts Teenaged Botherder |  |
The FBI's 'Bot Roast II' operation may have snared a significant figure in the underworld of compromising PCs and rendering them part of a remote controlled network of bots.
New Zealand police searched the residence of the individual only referred to by his alias. He is believed to be 18 and possibly the mastermind of an effort that has turned over a million computers into a far-flung botnet.
"Today, botnets are the weapon of choice of cyber criminals," FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a statement. "They seek to conceal their criminal activities by using third party computers as vehicles for their crimes."
This latest version of the FBI's probe into the illicit use of computers for crime found the criminal enterprises added up to a big loss for victims. The FBI attributed more than $20 million in losses to various botnet activities.
Eight specific people have either been indicted, pleaded guilty, or received sentencing since September as a result of Bot Roast II. Alexander Dmitriyevich Paskalov picked up a 42-month prison sentence for his role in a phishing scheme affecting an unidentified major financial institution in the Midwest.
Other suspects used botnets for spamming, launching DDoS attacks, and fraud. Some of the suspects are only one part of investigations that continue to take place.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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