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A New Zealand teenager was convicted Tuesday for his central role in
a global cyber crime ring which infected at least 1.3 million
computers worldwide and caused millions of dollars in losses.
Owen Thor Walker, 18, allegedly led a group of
international computer hackers who infected computers worldwide and
caused economic losses of 20 million US dollars.
The teenager pleaded guilty to six computer
crimes in a court in Thames, near his home south of Auckland and is
due to reappear on May 28 for consideration of pre-sentencing
reports.
Judge Arthur Thomkins said although some of the
charges carried maximum jail sentences of up to five years, he was
not considering imprisoning Walker, who suffers from Asperger's
syndrome, a mild form of autism.
Walker, whose online name was "Akill",
began committing the alleged crimes while still at school, police
said last year.
He designed a unique encrypted virus that was
undetectable by anti-virus software, police said.
The malicious software allowed access to user
names and passwords, as well as credit card details, and was used by
other criminals to commit crimes.
New Zealand police cooperated with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in the United States as well as Dutch
authorities to uncover the network.
The investigation started after an attack
involving 50,000 computers crashed the server at the University of
Pennsylvania in the United States in 2006.
Walker was living with his parents when he
committed the crimes, but they believed he was doing legal computer
programming work, a police statement said.
-- AFP
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