Botnet hacker gets prison sentence

Hacker who infected 72K computers heads to prison

September 7, 2012
Hacker

A notorious hacker has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for hacking thousands of computers.

Prosecutors said Joshua Schichtel, 30, of Phoenix, Arizona, infected about 72,000 computers with viruses. The viruses allowed the controller to hijack the infected computers and use them to spread spam and attack websites.

Schichtel pleaded guilty for selling access to the botnet server for $1,500 (R 12,400).

A network of infected computers is known as a “botnet”, with hacking groups using the infected network to overwhelm servers and pull-down government and industry websites.

Source: Arstechnica

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Tags: botnet, hacker, hacking, Joshua Schichtel, quicknews

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