UK virus writers sent to prison

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 Oct 2005 at 18:17

Two 20-year-olds from the UK have been sentenced to prison terms for their part in a virus-writing gang.

Jordan Bradley, 22, and Andrew Harvey, 23, were members of a group named the 'THr34t Krew' responsible for writing the TK worm which caused 'unquantifiable' damage to computers across the globe. They were gaoled for three and six months respectively at Newcastle Crown Court today.

The TK worm was a self-replicating worm that left back doors open on infected computers through which the gang could send commands and use the system to scan other computers for vulnerabilities and launch denial of service attacks.

Detective Superintendent, Mick Deats, Deputy Head of the NHTCU, (National Hi-Tech Crime Unit) said: 'Over the past year, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit has seen a sustained increase in the professionalism of cybercriminals. Companies are taking the brunt of their attempts to steal money and data, but consumers are also being hit.

'Our task is to track down those people who seek to hamper companies by reducing their ability to do business and I hope that these sentences deliver a tough message.'

Both the defendents pleaded guilty in May of conspiring to 'effect unauthorised modifications to the contents of computers with the intent to impair the operation of those computers, contrary to Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977'.

The pair were arrested in 2003 along with 21-year old US man, Raymond Stegerwalt, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution costs of $12,000 to the Department of Defence, whose computers had fallen foul of the worm.

The successful prosecution and sentencing of the gang members is the result of investigations by the UK's NHTCU and the US multi-agency CATCH team (Computer and Technology Crime Hi-Tech Response Team) based in Southern California.