Teenager convicted of million dollar hacks

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 1 Apr 2008 at 08:59

A teenager accused of being the ringleader of an international cybercriminal group has been convicted.

Police claim that the 18-year-old teenager, Owen Thor Walker, led a group which hijacked more than one million computers, acquiring information which allowed them to steal over £12 million from victims' bank accounts.

Walker was questioned in November as part of the FBI's crackdown on Botnets, the name given to strings of hijacked computers used to commit cybercrimes. He has now confessed to six charges of using computers for illegal purposes and is awaiting sentencing in May.

Police say that Walker wrote viruses to evade anti-spyware systems whilst in school, and then began selling his skills to criminal groups.